2007 Book IslamicSufismUnbound

Isl amic S ufism U nbound
I sl amic S ufism U nbound
P olitics and Piety in Twenty-First

Century Pakistan
Robert Rozehnal
Palgrave
macmillan
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ISLAMIC SUFISM UNBOUND
Copyright © Robert Rozehnal, 2007.
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Mapping the Chishti Sabiri Sufi Order 1

1 Sufism and the Politics of Islamic Identity 19
2 Muslim, Mystic, and Modern: Three Twentieth-Century
Sufi Masters 39
3 Imagining Sufism: The Publication of Chishti Sabiri Identity 89
4 Teaching Sufism: Networks of Community and Discipleship 129
5 Experiencing Sufism: The Discipline of Ritual Practice 173
Conclusions 227
Notes 231
Bibliography 257
Index 269
List of Illustrations
Figures
I.1 Women Dancing in Ecstasy at the Shrine of 'Ala ad-Din
'Ali Ahmad Sabir (d. 1291), Kalyar Sharif, India 2
1.1 The Shrine of Baba Farid ad-Din Mas'ud Ganj-i Shakkar
(d. 1265), Pakpattan, Pakistan 25
2.1 The Shrine of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi (d. 1978),
Karachi, Pakistan 61
2.2 The Shrine of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (d. 1995),
Allahabad, Pakistan 75
5.1 The Shrine of Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir Thani,
Pulau Besar, Malaysia 201
5.2 Qawwali Singers at the 2001 'urs Festival of Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Allahabad, Pakistan 213
Map
1.1 Map of Pakistan 20
Acknowledgments
T he field research for this study was supported by a fellowship from the
International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program of the Social
Science Research Council, with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. Additional funding was provided by fellowships from the
American Institute of Pakistan Studies, and Duke University’s Graduate
School and Center for International Studies. The writing stage was funded by
a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and Franz and
Class of 1968 Fellowships from Lehigh University. I am extremely grateful to
all these institutions for their generous support.
This project would not have been possible without the kindness, coopera-
tion, and hospitality of many Chishti Sabiri disciples in both Pakistan and
Malaysia. I thank them all and sincerely hope this book honors their
tradition. I owe a special debt of gratitude to a host of friends in Pakistan:
Dr. Mansoor Hashmi and family, Tahir Maqsood and family, Lubna Shah
Anwar and family, Moinuddin Hashmi, Jawwad and Bina Khwaja and family,
Suroosh Irfani, Rashida Hamid, Aamir Ali, Yawer Ansari, Shaffaq and
family, Muhammad Razzaq, Mushtaq Muhammad, Shahnaz Hassan and
family, Riaz Ibrahim and family, Irfan Khan, Madni and family, Tariq Nazir,
Altaf Siddiqui and family, Bilal, Muhammad Haroon Riedinger, Masood
Hasan, Abdul Razzaq, Muhammad Saalim Shaheedi, Fayyaz Hussain Gilani
and family, Tehzeeb un-Nissa Aziz, Saleem and Humaira Aziz and family,
Gulfizah Afzal Khan, Ayesha Salam, Salma Khan, and Asadullah Sumbal.
In the end, I am solely responsible for the views, as well as the mistakes,
expressed in this work. Even so, I want to acknowledge the influence of many
wonderful colleagues and friends whose insights and encouragement helped
bring it to life. In its earliest stages this project was shaped by my doctoral dis-
sertation committee at Duke University—a unique group of scholars repre-
senting three institutions and three academic disciplines: Professors Carl
Ernst (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Katherine Ewing (Duke
University), David Gilmartin (North Carolina State), Bruce Lawrence (Duke
University), and Ebrahim Moosa (Duke University). I thank them all for
their enthusiasm, patience, and unfailingly constructive criticism. I am espe-
cially indebted to Carl Ernst for opening the door to this research and to
Bruce Lawrence for skillfully guiding it to completion. Among the many
others whose wisdom and insight contributed to this work I would especially
like to thank Vincent Cornell, Omid Safi, Scott Kugle, Kecia Ali, Rick Colby,
x A c k n ow l e d g m e n t s
Jamillah Karim, Zia Inayat Khan, Naveeda Khan, Asad Ahmed, and Najeeb
Jan. I am particularly grateful to Anna Bigelow for her careful and critical
reading of the text at a crucial stage in its evolution. The encouragement and
collegiality of my colleagues in the Department of Religion Studies at Lehigh
University over the past several years has been equally invaluable. Lastly, I
thank my wife, Kelly Choi—for her boundless patience, humor, and perspec-
tive. I owe the ultimate debt to my parents, Ellen and Richard Rozehnal, for
their unwavering support and for first introducing me to the world of books
and travel.
Introduction
Mapping the C hishti Sabiri

Sufi O rder
T his book is a study of a living Sufi tradition. Drawing on both textual and
ethnographic materials, I trace the identity politics and ritual practices of a
contemporary South Asian Sufi order (silsila) through the contexts of late
colonial India and postcolonial Pakistan. My analysis focuses on the use of
sacred space, ritual, and mass media among the followers of a particular sub-
branch of a prominent Sufi lineage: the Chishti Sabiri silsila. These modern
Sufi adepts preserve a distinctive Muslim identity that is legitimized through
spiritual genealogy, inscribed in texts, communicated in the intimate
exchange between master and disciple and, above all, experienced through
ritual performance. Though connected to a sacred past, they are also fully
enmeshed in the living present. In response to shifts in the social, cultural,
ideological, and technological landscape of South Asia, Chishti Sabiris have
embraced a series of practical strategies designed to adapt Sufism to the
contingencies and complexities of twenty-first-century life.
As the inner or “mystical” dimension of Islam, Sufism (tasawwuf) stands
as an alternative nexus of Islamic authority, piety, and practice.1 Neither a sect
nor a cult, it is best understood as a spiritual quest, experienced and expressed
via an interpersonal teaching network centered on the fundamental master-
disciple relationship. Pushing the boundaries of normative Islam, Sufis strive
for a direct, intimate, and unmediated experience of the Divine. Sufi adepts
tend to emphasize the inward over the outward, intuition over intellect, spir-
itual contemplation over scholarly debate, and ecstatic poetry over legalistic
prose. Since the twelfth century, Sufi institutional orders—discrete spiritual
“paths” (tariqas)—proliferated throughout the Muslim world. Though they
vary in their teachings and techniques, most Sufis strictly follow the dictates
of the Qur'an and the shari'a (Divine law), and model their behavior on the
example of the Prophet Muhammad (sunna).
2 Islamic Sufism Unbound
Despite its deep roots in Islamic history, Sufism remains a controversial

and contested tradition. With their bold claims to experiential knowledge
and authority, Sufis have often been misunderstood. Much of this dissonance
stems from the fact that such a broad range of practices are subsumed under
the rubric of “Sufism.” At the level of everyday social practice, Sufism is often
equated with “popular” worship at shrines. In South Asia, the tombs of Sufi
saints provide an alternative outlet for piety and pilgrimage, especially for
women who are often marginalized from the public, gendered space of the
mosque (figure I.1).
This photograph captures a typical scene at Kalyar Sharif—a rural shrine
complex north of Delhi and the final resting place of the eponymous founder
of the Chishti Sabiri order: 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad Sabir (d. 1291). Here
women dance in a state of ecstasy in front of the saint’s tomb while a group
of musicians (qawwals) perform to a crowd of pilgrims. In many ways, this
image encapsulates popular Sufism in the Subcontinent. However, these
same practices are flashpoints in public debates over Islamic authority and
authenticity. For conservative Islamist critics who reject any intermediaries
between human beings and God, the cult of Sufi saints is blasphemous idol-
atry and the worship at shrines corrupt superstition. Yet the story of Sufism
in South Asia does not end with saints and shrines. Throughout the
Subcontinent, Sufism has inspired myriad forms of artistic and aesthetic
expression—from vernacular poetry, to painting and architecture, to music and
Figure I.1 Women Dancing in Ecstasy at the Shrine of 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad Sabir
(d. 1291), Kalyar Sharif, India
Source: Photograph by Robert Rozehnal
Introduction 3
dance traditions. Above all, Sufism in twenty-first-century South Asia

remains a spiritual teaching tradition—mediated in the intimate exchange
between master and disciple and experienced through ritual performance.
Who are the Chishti Sabiri Sufis? In South Asia—the vast geographic and
cultural zone encompassing modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—
the Chishtiyya has been the most prominent Sufi brotherhood since the
twelfth century.2 With its doctrine of social equality, tolerance, and spiritual
discipline, the order spread rapidly eastward from its roots in the remote
town of Chisht in central Afghanistan. Under the guidance of charismatic
spiritual leaders (shaykhs or pirs) who embodied Islamic doctrine through
their piety, Sufism helped translate Islam for the indigenous population.
Versed in local customs and proficient in vernacular languages, Chishti
shaykhs established centers of learning and hospices (khanaqahs) that offered
food and shelter for the wayfarers and mendicants who survived on their
charity, solace for the pilgrims who visited them for spiritual blessings
(baraka), and intensive spiritual training for their select disciples.3 The
posthumous reputation of many Chishti shaykhs often led to the development
of elaborate shrine complexes (dargahs) where devotees continued to flock in
search of spiritual power to alleviate their worldly troubles. As loci of sacred
geography and fonts for public social welfare, these regional shrines continue
to thrive as pilgrimage sites and symbols of local Muslim culture and identity.
In South Asia the Chishti Sufi order developed two primary genealogical
branches: the Nizamiyya and Sabiriyya. Breaking from the lineage of the
dominant Nizami branch in the thirteenth century, the eponymous founder
of the Chishti Sabiri subbranch, 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad Sabir, initiated an
alternative model of spiritual asceticism. From the beginning, Chishti Sabiri
spiritual masters were much less visible than their Nizami counterparts, with-
drawing from public, urban life, and the allure of the royal courts. Renowned
for their intense, awe-inspiring (jalali) personalities, Sabiri shaykhs stuck to
more rural locales, made fewer public appearances, trained fewer devotees,
wrote fewer books, and generally avoided the construction of large shrine
complexes (dargahs). As a result, much of the silsila’s early history is elusive
and opaque, shrouded in legend.
All this changed during the era of British colonialism, however. In the face
of rising communal polemics and competition, select Chishti Sabiri leaders
came to view silence and withdrawal as untenable. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, prominent shaykhs linked themselves to social reform movements,
founding educational institutions and publishing a broad range of texts. For
example, both Hajji Imdad Allah al-Muhajir Makki (1817–1899) and Rashid
Ahmad Gangohi (1829–1905)—the spiritual founders of the famous
Deoband madrasa—were Chishti Sabiri masters.4 The activism of these
nineteenth-century shaykhs mirrored the efforts of numerous Sufi leaders
from diverse institutional orders across the Muslim world who resisted
European colonialism and vigorously defended Sufi doctrine and practices.5
For the Chishti Sabiri order, however, this model of socially engaged Sufism
represented a radical break with historical precedent.
Today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples (murids) embrace the reformist spirit of

their nineteenth-century predecessors, even as they perpetuate the core ritual
practices that are the enduring bedrock of their Sufi identity. Contemporary
murids remain deeply attuned to historical memory. The order’s family tree
(shajara) charts a spiritual heritage that links the current generation of disci-
ples directly to the authority and legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. To a
large extent, ancestry defines identity for Chishti Sabiri devotees who recite
the following genealogy in a ritual liturgy:
1. The Prophet Muhammad (d. 632)

2. 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661)
3. Hasan al-Basri (d. 728)
4. 'Abd al-Wahid ibn Zaid (d. 792)
5. Jamal ad-Din Fuzayl ibn 'Iyaz (d. 803)
6. Ibrahim ibn Adham al-Balkhi (d. 779)
7. Huzayfa al-Mar'ashi (d. 823)
8. Abu Hubayra Amin ad-Din al-Basri (d. 895)
9. 'Alu Dinawari (d. 911)
10. Abu Ishaq Chishti (d. 941)
11. Abu Ahmad 'Abd al-Chishti (d. 966)
12. Abu Muhammad Chishti (d. 1020)
13. Abu Yusuf Chishti (d. 1067)
14. Mawdud Chishti (d. 1133)
15. Sharif Zandani (d. 1215)
16. 'Usman Harwani (d. 1220)
17. Mu'in ad-Din Hasan Sanjari (d. 1236)
18. Qutb ad-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1237)
19. Farid ad-Din Mas'ud Ganj-i Shakkar (d. 1265)
20. 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad Sabir (d. 1291), eponymous founder of the
Chishti Sabiri order
21. Shams ad-Din Turk Panipati (d. 1316)
22. Jalal ad-Din Kabir al-Awliya' Panipati (d. 1364)
23. 'Abd al-Haqq Rudawlwi (d. 1434)
24. Ahmed 'Arif Rudawlwi (d. 1477)
25. Muhammad 'Arif Rudawlwi (d. 1492)
26. 'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (d. 1537)
27. Jalal ad-Din Thanesari (d. 1582)
28. Nizam ad-Din Balkhi (d. 1626)
29. Abu Sa'id Gangohi (d. 1630)
30. Muhibb Allah Allahabadi (d. 1640)
31. Muhammad Fayyaz (d. 1696)
32. Muhammad Makki (d. 11 Rajab, no date)
33. 'Azd ad-Din 'Aziz Amrohi (d. 1759)
34. 'Abd al-Hadi Amrohi (d. 1776)
35. 'Abd al-Bari Amrohi (d. 1811)
36. 'Abd al-Rahim Shahid (d. 1831)
Introduction 5
37. Nur Muhammad Jhanjanawi (d. 1843)

38. Hajji Imdad Allah al-Faruqi al-Muhajir Makki (d. 1899)
39. Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d. 1905)
40. Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan (d. 1936)
41. Muhammad Zauqi Shah (d. 1951)
42. Shahidullah Faridi (d. 1978)—Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (d. 1995)
43. Siraj 'Ali Muhammad
This study focuses on the final links in this chain of spiritual authority. In
particular, I explore the lives and enduring legacies of Muhammad Zauqi
Shah and his two principal successors, Shahidullah Faridi and Wahid Bakhsh
Sial Rabbani. This trio was profoundly shaped by the spatial and cultural con-
text of twentieth-century South Asia. They were each acquainted by educa-
tion and experience with the institutions and ideology of the colonial state.
As writers and ideologues, these shaykhs resolutely defended the orthodoxy of
Sufism on the contested public stage of postcolonial Pakistan. As spiritual
guides, they understood Sufism as a personal struggle for self-mastery, expe-
rienced and expressed within a moral community. The shaykhs communicated
the disciplinary techniques of embodied and enacted ritual performance
(suluk) to their loyal followers. Their teachings aimed to cultivate a modern,
virtuous self through interpersonal networks of knowledge and practice.
Today this legacy is perpetuated by a new generation of Chishti Sabiri disci-
ples in Pakistan. Recently the order has stretched its reach across the Indian
Ocean to include a growing contingent of followers in Malaysia. From
Karachi to Kuala Lumpur, these twenty-first-century Sufi adepts perpetuate a
tradition that remains grounded in Indo-Muslim history, even as it continues
to expand into new and uncharted territory.
Framing “Tradition” and “Modernity”

This book traces Chishti Sabiri politics and piety within the context of
twentieth- and twenty-first-century South Asia. Throughout this survey, I
frequently employ two key terms: “tradition” and “modernity.” Though often
invoked in academic scholarship and public policy debates, these ambiguous
concepts are rarely explained. They are typically paired in opposition—with
“modernity” encompassing everything that is “nontraditional,” and vice
versa. Invariably, one is valorized and the other discredited. The ubiquity of
these kinds of reductive, dichotomous definitions only serves to reify both
“tradition” and “modernity” as static categories, however. In this study, by
contrast, I approach them as malleable and contingent constructs, subject to
continuous reformulation and reinvention. Since both terms surface in my
analysis of the public and private dimensions of contemporary Chishti Sabiri
practice, they each merit some initial consideration here.
“Tradition” is an ambivalent and ambiguous concept. Much of this fuzziness
results from the term’s elasticity. In contemporary Islamic religious discourse,
tradition often constitutes an idealized, sacralized, timeless order—the antithesis
of the profane, lived-in world of temporal change and historical context.

When defined in relation to a lost Golden Age, tradition sets a standard
against which the present is measured (and invariably found lacking). While
articulations of sacred history and genealogy differ across the Islamic world,
in all contexts they provide Muslims with a powerful sense of orientation,
meaning, and purpose. Especially in the midst of unsettling times, appeals to
a direct and unbroken link with the past provide a vital sense of continuity
and community. Recent scholarship challenges the very notion of a pristine,
primordial, and unchanging tradition, however. As historian Muhammad
Qasim Zaman notes, dichotomous constructions of “tradition” and “moder-
nity” are increasingly challenged by scholars who argue that “appeals to
tradition are not necessarily a way of opposing change but can equally facili-
tate change; that what passes for tradition is, not infrequently, of quite recent
vintage; and that definitions of what constitutes tradition are often a product
of bitter and continuing conflicts within a culture.”6
All Muslims everywhere look to the Qur'an, the dictates of Divine law
(shari'a), and the model of the Prophet Muhammad (sunna) for guidance
and inspiration in their spiritual lives. Yet despite frequent claims to a time-
less, immutable universality, the interpretation and implementation of Islamic
tradition remains remarkably fluid and dynamic. In today’s postcolonial
Muslim world, the authority of the 'ulama— religious scholars, literally
“those who know”—as arbiters of tradition is increasingly challenged.
Shifting geopolitical and socioeconomic boundaries, competing nationalist
identities, and the cumulative effects of mass education and mass communi-
cation have all contributed to an increasing “objectification of Muslim con-
sciousness.” 7 As a result, Muslim identity politics across the globe now more
than ever constitutes a dynamic struggle over multivalent religious sym-
bols.In this exchange, a diverse range of social actors—the state, 'ulama,
Islamists, secular intellectuals, and even Sufis—wrestle over the mantle of
Islamic authority and authenticity in a complex and fluid process of bargain-
ing and protest, accommodation and conflict. Within the charged ideological
landscape of the post-9/11 Muslim world, this internal wrangling has inten-
sified exponentially. Tradition, in short, is up for grabs.
“Modernity” is an equally problematic construct, a malleable and contested
term that is “easy to inhabit but difficult to define.”8 This is not to say that
scholars have shied away from the subject. Indeed, there is a voluminous
scholarship that attempts to delineate and deconstruct modernity by explor-
ing its genesis and genealogy, its causes and effects, from multiple theoretical
and disciplinary perspectives.9 Despite its volume, this scholarly debate has
often produced more heat than light. While a consensus on terminology and
definitions has proved elusive, modernity is typically associated with a partic-
ular worldview and a discrete set of practices, ideas, and institutions. These
include such concepts as “citizenship, the state, civil society, public sphere,
human rights, equality before the law, the individual, distinctions between
public and private, the idea of the subject, democracy, popular sovereignty,
social justice, scientific rationality,” and secularism.10 For many scholars such
Introduction 7
as the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, the one common denominator

underlying any genealogy of “modernity” is the looming presence of
the Europe. Other scholarship, however, tracks divergent trajectories of
modernity—from its roots in European colonialism to its appropriation and
reconstitution among non-European peoples in the postcolonial world.
While scholars disagree on its utility as a universal, cross-cultural category,
however, one thing does seem clear: in the twenty-first century, the
discourses and practices associated with modernity have gone global. As
anthropologist Talal Asad illustrates, despite its inherent ambiguity modernity
is now a universal political-economic “project”:
It is right to say that “modernity” is neither a totally coherent object nor a clearly
bounded one, and that many of its elements originate in relations with the his-
tories of peoples outside Europe. Modernity is a project—or rather, a series of
interlinked projects—that certain people in power seek to achieve. The project
aims at institutionalizing a number of (sometimes conflicting, often evolving)
principles: constitutionalism, moral autonomy, democracy, human rights, civil
equality, industry, consumerism, freedom of the market—and secularism.11
This book aims to decenter modernity. In my view, modernity is neither

monolithic nor hegemonic—it has no metanarrative, no universal form, no
singular function. As both a discourse and a practice, modernity is encoun-
tered, experienced, and shaped by individual social agents (real people) in spe-
cific historical moments (discrete places and times). In tracing the multiple
vectors of Chishti Sabiri identity, I make no attempt to theorize, delineate, or
deconstruct “modernity” as an abstract, disembodied, decontextualized signi-
fier. Instead, following the lead of historian Timothy Mitchell, I chart “the
local articulation and dissemination of modernity” by “paying less attention to
the grand designs of the colonizing or modernizing state and more attention
to the myriad local sites where the modern is realized and continually trans-
lated, in its articulation with and production of the non-modern.”12 In short,
this book is less concerned with defining what modernity is than in exploring
how it is experienced and explained. To be specific, I am interested in how
Chishti Sabiris have endeavored to rethink, reform, and represent their own
Sufi identity and practices within the social and historical context of late twen-
tieth-century India and early twenty-first-century Pakistan and Malaysia.
Beyond its usage as a generic marker of temporality—a synonym for
“now”—modernity often creates more confusion than clarity as an analytical
framework. Nevertheless, I employ the term because the Chishti Sabiris I
study do. For them, modernity is not a theoretical abstraction. Nor is it a
totalizing system, a zero sum game that must either be appropriated or
rejected as a prepackaged whole. Instead, disciples use the term as shorthand
for the specific social, political, cultural, and religious ideas and institutions
they encounter in the lived-in, real-world landscape of their daily lives. When
they describe themselves as “modern” Muslims, Chishti Sabiri disciples do
not bother to articulate a detailed definition of the concept. They most certainly
do not quote from Western theorists. In practice, the silsila’s appropriation of

the panoply of modernity—its language, its logic, and its institutions—is a
selective and utilitarian bricolage.
So what do contemporary Chishti Sabiris make of modernity? Though far
from a homogenous group, disciples could be generally described as global
cosmopolitans. The inner circle of murids is comprised largely of urban, mid-
dle-class professionals who are fully integrated into the global, capitalist
economy. Many of them are active participants in public life and civil society.
On both sides of the Indian Ocean, Chishti Sabiris also champion their
national identities as patriotic citizens of Pakistan and Malaysia. They
embrace science, rationalism, and technology, all of which they see as entirely
compatible with Islamic piety and Sufi practice. A significant number of dis-
ciples have lived or traveled abroad for education and work, and others have
extended networks of family and friends overseas. Thus, in both their per-
sonal and professional lives, murids move fluidly through the diverse modal-
ities and multiple locations of twenty-first-century life.
Yet even as they accept implicitly many of the benefits of modernity,
Chishti Sabiris explicitly reject many of the ideologies and institutions asso-
ciated with it. In public writings and private conversations, for example,
shaykhs and disciples decry the political and economic hegemony of the
West. They are equally critical of many of the excesses of global consumer
culture—its shallow materialism, exploitation, and blatant disregard for
religious sensitivities. Most significantly, Chishti Sabiris utterly reject any
attempt to defend or promote secularism. This distinguishes them (and
Pakistanis generally) from their Muslim counterparts in India who—amid a
vast Hindu majority—equate secular politics with the defense of religious
pluralism and the protection of religious minorities. As citizens of the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan, by contrast, Chishti Sabiris define secularism as
the removal of religion from the public sphere and insist that God cannot
and must not be marginalized from human affairs. Though they embrace
many of the instruments of modernity, Chishti Sabiris are critical of mod-
ernism as a holistic ideological framework. In this sense, they “are moderns,
but not modernists.”13
When asked to articulate their identity as twenty-first-century Muslims
and Sufis, disciples often employ another vocabulary altogether. In their
assessment, the central issue they face is how to accommodate a life of spiri-
tual discipline and religious piety to the myriad demands of their daily expe-
riences. Chishti Sabiris do not view this conundrum as something unique to
“modernity,” however. Instead, adopting a well-known adage, they assert
that the real struggle—the true jihad—is the age-old dilemma of balancing
religion (din) with worldly life (dunya). Invoking the paradigmatic example
(sunna) of the Prophet Muhammad, disciples insist that Islam mandates a
symbiotic relationship between din and dunya. The mundane world of every-
day life, they argue, is itself the ultimate testing ground for a Muslim’s faith.
In this, the Chishti Sabiri order bears a striking resemblance to the transna-
tional Daudi Bohra community studied by anthropologist Jonah Blank.
Introduction 9
As Blank notes,
The Bohras have been able to integrate and utilize modernity because they
regard it as a friend rather than a foe. When modernity is cast as the obstacle to
be overcome, the battle is already more than halfway lost. By reorienting the
mindset of the community, [the Bohras] have succeeded in reorienting moder-
nity to serve as a bolster for the group’s fundamental traditions. The Bohras
regard the deen and dunya (spiritual and temporal concerns) as two halves of an
integrated whole: it’s not an either-or proposition, but a way of looking at both
religious and everyday concerns in a holistic manner.14
Much like their South Asian Shi'a counterparts, contemporary Chishti

Sabiris have essentially formulated their own version of postcolonial moder-
nity. Today’s disciples—young and old, male and female—appear perfectly
comfortable with studying at a secular university, working at an international
bank, surfing the Internet, speaking both Urdu and English, arguing about
domestic and global politics, voting in national elections, and traveling
abroad. At all times and in every location, however, they preserve a religious
identity, a discursive tradition, and a ritual discipline that links them to a
deeper, sacred Sufi history. Unbound from its premodern geographical and
cultural locus in South Asia, the twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri silsila
has transformed itself. At the level of everyday practice, disciples in both
Pakistan and Malaysia have adopted a range of practical strategies to integrate
Sufism into the complex matrix of twenty-first-century life. Yet even as they
experience their faith in new forms and spaces, Chishti Sabiris emphasize the
underlying continuity of the doctrinal teachings and ritual practices of their
Sufi tradition.
I view the Chishti Sabiri project of reimagining postcolonial Sufism as
further evidence of the malleability and fluidity of modernity. The meanings
and applications of modernity are constituted in localized, particularized
settings—often outside the geography and categories of the West and beyond
the gaze of the colonial and postcolonial state. As anthropologist Katherine
Ewing illustrates, “In order to avoid exaggerating its power, it is important to
recognize that modernity itself is not a single force but rather the temporary
conjunction of practices and ideologies that have diverse sources and diver-
gent trajectories. Current technologies are, of course, taken up into Sufi
practice, but they are transformed and encompassed in local circles of mean-
ing. Sufism, itself a diverse phenomenon, thus has a historical trajectory that
has been affected but not determined by the composite of forces that we
call modernity.”15 Over the past sixty years, the Chishti Sabiri order has
marshaled a critical and creative response to the shifting landscape postcolo-
nial South Asia. By selectively appropriating and then reshaping the constitu-
tive discourses and practices of modernity, Chishti Sabiri shaykhs and disciples
have adapted Sufi tradition to changing contexts. As the following chapters
of this book will illustrate, Chishti Sabiris have thus shaped their own
alternative modernity —an identity that is simultaneously Muslim, mystic,
and modern.
Inside or Out?: Negotiating Boundaries

In a strange and wonderful way, my own introduction to the world of living
Sufism was facilitated by a photograph. I spent the academic year of
1995–1996 as a graduate student studying Urdu in Lahore, Pakistan. During
the course of my studies, I also had the opportunity to meet and interact with
a number of Chishti Sabiri disciples. In April 1996, I accompanied a group of
murids on a pilgrimage to the rural village of Allahabad—sixty miles south-
west of the city of Bahawalpur—in southern Punjab to commemorate the
first death anniversary ('urs) of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani.
I remained there for a full week, living among disciples, sharing their meals
and company, listening to their stories, and observing their ritual devotions.
It was my first real taste of the intensity and transformative power of Sufi
piety in practice. And to say the least, it left an impression.
After the week’s festivities concluded, a senior disciple invited me to
accompany him to the nearby town of Uch Sharif. Together we spent a day
wandering through the magnificent blue and white tiled mosques and deso-
late tombs of this ancient center of learning, trade, and pilgrimage built on
a hill overlooking the confluence of the Sutlej and Chenab rivers. That after-
noon, near the crumbling tomb of Bibi Jawindi—the wife of the renowned
fourteenth-century Suhrawardi shaykh, Sayyid Jalal ad-Din Bukhari
(1303–1383)—we were approached by an elderly gentleman. I remember
being both surprised and impressed by his sudden appearance. The man was
tall, thin, and dark-skinned, with long, flowing white hair and a beard. He
was dressed in a plain, white shalwar kamiz, with simple leather sandals on
his feet, a thick white blanket draped over his shoulders, and a white cap cov-
ering his head. He also wore a pair of thick, black glasses. In one hand he
carried a string of prayer wooden beads, and in the other a long wooden
staff. I distinctly remember shaking the old man’s hand. We exchanged a
few pleasantries and then I wandered off by myself to take more photo-
graphs. When I returned a short time later, I found my friend seated on
the ground, still engaged in conversation with the stranger. With their
approval, I snapped a picture of the two of them. Soon after, we bid our
farewells and went our separate ways. When I returned to the United States
that summer, I sent this photograph—along with a series of others from the
Allahabad 'urs—to several friends in Lahore as a small gesture of gratitude
for their hospitality and kindness.
In August 2000 I returned to Pakistan for my dissertation fieldwork
research. While I hoped to pursue an ethnographic study of the contempo-
rary Chishti Sabiri silsila, I was unsure how my intentions would be
received. It had been four years since that April day in Uch Sharif, but not
long after my arrival I discovered that in the interim my photograph had
assumed a life of its own. Piecing together the story, I learned that the pic-
ture had caused an immediate sensation when the elderly stranger in the pic-
ture was identified as the deceased spiritual master Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh
Sial Rabbani. This was, to put it mildly, perplexing since the shaykh had been
Introduction 11
deceased for more than a year when the photograph was taken. I was also
told that the photograph had been shown to Wahid Bakhsh’s wife shortly
before her death. She declared it authentic, noting that the glasses, staff, and
shoes were those of her late husband. To my further surprise, this photo-
graph had also been copied and widely distributed among Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh’s disciples—along with the story of my role as the photographer. As
a result, murids I had never met would inevitably ask, “Are you the one who
took the picture of my shaykh?” In their eyes, this photograph legitimized
my presence and my work. And during the ensuing fifteen months of
research, it facilitated an access and accessibility to the silsila that I could
never have otherwise anticipated.
With this remarkable introduction, I was drawn deeper into the world of
Chishti Sabiri Sufism. From the start, my research raised a host of issues that
anyone who undertakes ethnographic fieldwork must be prepared to deal
with—complicated questions about the boundaries between participation
and observation, scholarly objectivity and self-positioning. Many scholars
have written about the ethics of ethnography and the complex power dynam-
ics in the act of re-presenting others.16 Is there such a thing as objectivity in
the study of religion? Should there be? Who is more qualified to interpret
religious practice—religious actors themselves (the emic voice), or outside
academic observers (the etic voice)? How should the scholar mark her/his
presence in the text? Is authorial voice best left at the margins, or should the
interpreter reflexively insert herself/himself into the narrative?
These are important and vexing ethical questions with profound implica-
tions because when scholars speak for others, “power, not just meaning, is at
stake when we do our work.”17 In any ethnography, the playing field is not
level—and these sorts of ambivalences only threaten to complicate matters
further. Reflecting on her own work with a guru in India, anthropologist
Kirin Narayan notes that there is “a raw nerve for every fieldworker: the eth-
ical dilemma involved in appropriating fragments from others’ lives. While
this appropriation serves the ends of academic careers, the uncomfortable
question remains as to how the people concerned, who provided hospitality,
time, and insights, might gain.”18
I wrestled with these very same questions during my fieldwork, and yet
again while writing this book. In translating the visceral, three-dimensional
experiences of fieldwork to the flat, black-and-white space of the written
page, I have been constantly aware of a slippage, a loss, an underlying ten-
sion, and ambiguity that is never fully resolved. In narrating the Chishti
Sabiri story, I begin with the assumption that all interpretations emerge from
a particular site. I acknowledge my own positioning as a white, middle-class,
American male of Christian background. Further, I am aware that my train-
ing in Islamic Studies and the History of Religions profoundly impacted the
questions I asked of Chishti Sabiri disciples in Pakistan. Without a doubt, my
own biography and biases have colored the writing of this book as well.
I mark this as a process of both translation and transition, a movement across
the boundaries of physical, temporal, and epistemological space. To quote
from religious historian Thomas Tweed,
Where do scholars of religion stand? We are neither here nor there and do not
remain on the boundary for very long. Rather, interpreters are constantly
moving back and forth—across the terrain between inside and outside, fact and
value, the past and the future . . . But the interpreter can never be fully or
permanently inside. We move across—but only partially and temporarily. The
act—or, more precisely, the process—of interpretation inevitably distances. It
pushes us away. But, at its best, interpretation closes that distance and comes
back across.19
This book explores both the public and private dimensions of contemporary
Chishti Sabiri practice. I quote at length from the silsila’s texts as well as from
a host of recorded interviews to allow—to the greatest extent possible—
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs and disciples to speak for themselves. At the same time,
I recognize that my questions, the way I organize the material, and the the-
oretical and interpretive tools I bring to the analysis inevitably inserts my own
voice into the narrative. In the end, this is not the book Chishti Sabiri
disciples would write. Many murids will see their own words reproduced on
these pages. No doubt, some will wonder why certain things were said and
others omitted. Still other readers will, I imagine, lament the frequent
emphasis on politics and ideology and see my analysis as too laden with the-
ory and academic abstractions. This is all to be expected, especially given the
silsila’s emphasis on the importance of firsthand experience. Chishti Sabiri
disciples view books, at best, as invitations to practice.
And this is the ultimate, insurmountable barrier. As an academic outsider,
I claim no direct knowledge of the inner states and experiences that are the
essence and goal—the raison d'etre—of Sufi practice. While there is much
I did not experience and still do not fully understand, I acknowledge that
I have been profoundly impacted by my interactions with the Chishti Sabiri
community. To paraphrase a Sufi metaphor, I have seen the fire and sensed its
heat. I have watched others burn and have encountered people who were
clearly well cooked. But ultimately I make no claims to having burnt myself; in
fact, I would say that I remain quite raw. At most I have taken a small sip from
a vast ocean. There are certainly other stories to tell here, and I leave them for
future interlocutions and other narrators. As for this telling, while it is not a
hagiography, it is narrated with humility, gratitude, and profound respect.
Methods, Sources, and Structure

The title of this work, Islamic Sufism Unbound, demands some explanation.
For some “Islamic Sufism” may sound redundant; others may find it novel,
even counterintuitive. For twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri adepts, how-
ever, it is an absolutely essential pairing. Chishti Sabiris view Sufism as the
essence of Islamic orthodoxy, an authentic discourse and practice firmly
grounded in the dictates of normative law (shari'a) and prophetic precedent
Introduction 13
(sunna). At the same time, they champion Pakistan as the teleological

culmination of Islamic history. In this sense, the order’s historical narrative is
unbound from the prevailing story of the nation and its religious roots. As its
transnational reach continues to expand, the order is increasingly unbound
from its historical moorings in South Asia as well. Furthermore, by adapting
its teaching networks and ritual performances to changing contexts, contem-
porary Chishti Sabiris have effectively unbound the trajectory of their own
tradition. To keep pace with these momentous shifts, I believe scholars need
to do some unbinding of their own. Sufism’s complexity and dynamism have
consistently evaded the gaze of the postcolonial state, the critique of Islamist
detractors, and the purview of academic scholarship as well. To capture
Sufism’s inherent complexity, the scholar’s methodology must be equally
malleable and responsive.
With certain notable exceptions, however, academic studies of Sufism
have generated more heat than light. As Carl Ernst has illustrated, the term
“Sufism” is itself an invention of late eighteenth-century European
Orientalist scholarship. In current academic language it serves as a generic,
catch-all sociological term “for anyone connected to the texts, saints,
shrines, orders, and practices broadly associated with Islamic spirituality.”20
Most Western scholars of Islam interpret Sufi thought and practice through
an essentializing and reductive lens. Typically, Sufism is characterized as
one of three things: an abstract mystical philosophy inscribed in “classical”
texts; a thinly veiled political ideology; or an ossified relic, a once dynamic
tradition now devolved into popular tomb cults.21 The result is an
entrenched view of contemporary Sufism as a monolithic, superstitious,
syncretistic cult mired in profiteering and political wrangling. Ironically,
this simplistic model parallels the attacks leveled against Sufism by its
Islamist detractors. As Ernst notes, Euro-American scholars and Muslim
fundamentalists “share (for somewhat different reasons) a ‘Golden Age’
view of history, which lauds safely dead ‘classical’ Sufis while scorning more
recent examples of the tradition.”22
Both Islamicists and social scientists favor one-dimensional models of
Sufism.23 Echoing early Orientalist scholarship, specialists in Islamic Studies
tend to focus on the literary texts of select premodern Sufi masters.
Abstracting Sufi doctrine from its broader social milieu, their work empha-
sizes hagiology, detailed descriptions of saintly piety, and the saint’s inner
metaphysical journey to God. For their peers in the social sciences, however,
such God talk is anathema. With rare exception, anthropologists dismiss mys-
tical experience as elusive and ultimately ineffable. Downplaying the doctri-
nal dimensions of Muslim sainthood, they focus instead on the public
negotiation of Sufi power and authority. Not surprisingly, most anthropolog-
ical studies of South Asian Sufism concentrate on “objectively” visible phe-
nomena such as saintly charisma and the popular ritual practices at Sufi
shrines.24 In my view, each of these approaches precludes an understanding of
the full complexity and multivalence of Islamic sainthood. What is needed
therefore is a more nuanced, multidimensional, interdisciplinary reading of
Sufism’s multiple dimensions—its public and private manifestations, its

doctrines and practices, its piety, and its politics.
This book argues that Sufism (like the broader category of “Islam”) is best
understood as a verb rather than a noun. Sufism is not a static, homogenous
“thing” that can be studied in isolation. Rather, it is a discursive tradition and
an embodied practice that is experienced in discrete temporal and cultural loca-
tions.25 Furthermore, there is no Sufism without Sufis. Even when they share a
common corporate identity connected to specific genealogies of teachers, Sufi
adepts are each unique individuals. Any study of Sufi piety and practice, there-
fore, needs to account for time, place, and agency. With this in mind, I view
Sufi identity as textual and contextual. It is envisioned and articulated in texts.
At the same time, it is experienced and expressed in ritual contexts. Moreover,
texts and contexts intertwine. As Catherine Bell reminds us, “The dynamic
interaction of texts and rites, reading and chanting, the word fixed and the
word preached are practices, not social developments of a fixed nature and sig-
nificance. As practices, they continually play off each other to renegotiate tra-
dition, authority, and the hegemonic order. As practices, they invite and expect
the strategic counterplay.”26 With attention to both continuity and change, this
study engages both written texts and ethnographic contexts to chart Chishti
Sabiri Sufism as a multidimensional, dynamic and adaptive Islamic tradition.
Combining manuscript research and fieldwork my methodology aims to
bridge a disciplinary divide. I seek a middle space between the philological
approach of Islamicists who often overlook the dynamics and diversity of
localized, ground-level contexts, and the overdetermined theorizing of
social scientists who frequently gloss the impact of historical change and
import of textual traditions. In this I follow the lead of several recent publi-
cations that aim to rethink and retool the standard approaches to the study
of South Asian Sufism.27 Katherine Ewing, for example, provides unique
psychological insights into contemporary Pakistani Sufism in her book,
Arguing Sainthood, though her ethnography gives less attention to Sufi rit-
ual practices. In similar fashion, Pnina Werbner’s recent study explores a
Pakistani Naqshbandi order with a growing transnational reach in England.
Werbner examines a range of public rituals, but glosses over the essential
core of Sufi practice: the master-disciple teaching relationship.28 And Arthur
Buehler’s detailed study offers new perspectives on the history and practices
of the Naqshbandi Sufi order in South Asia, though it focuses largely on pre-
modern texts and lacks a nuanced theoretical framework.29 For my purposes,
however, the most relevant contribution is Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B.
Lawrence’s monograph, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South
Asia and Beyond. This comprehensive overview provides an unparalleled
account of the Chishti order, both past and present. Even so, it focuses pre-
dominantly on premodern shaykhs within the Chishti Nizami lineage, with
less attention to the Sabiri subbranch.30 Though indebted to all these works,
this book aims to fill in some of the remaining gaps. In tracking contemporary
Chishti Sabiri Sufism, I employ a wide array of interdisciplinary lenses—an
approach that should resonate with readers interested in the theory and
Introduction 15
practice of modernity, postcoloniality, religious nationalism, transnational

identity, mass media technology, and ritual.
This project draws on fifteen months of fieldwork research in Pakistan
(August 2000–September 2001) and Malaysia (October 2001–November
2001). In Pakistan, I was based in the cultural capital of Lahore. I also
traveled frequently to Islamabad, Bahawalpur, Allahabad (southern Punjab),
and Karachi to interact with the Chishti Sabiri disciples. In the aftermath of
September 11, 2001, I transitioned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to further
explore the order’s growing transnational dimension. In both countries
I recorded extensive personal interviews and oral histories. These interviews
were conducted in Urdu, English, or a combination of both. During my
fieldwork, I observed the silsila’s myriad ritual activities as well. This included
communal prayers, Qur'an recitations, meditative chanting (zikr), contem-
plation (muraqaba), musical assemblies (sama'), and pilgrimages (ziyarat)
to Sufi tomb complexes. Wherever I traveled, I collected an array of texts
that encompass several distinct genres, from the discourses of Sufi masters
(malfuzat), to private letters, diaries, and photographs.
Throughout the book, I draw liberally on textual translations and quota-
tions from personal interviews. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the
original Urdu sources are my own. In the interest of accessibility for a general
readership, I avoid the use of diacritics; only 'ayn (as in shari'a) and hamza
(as in Qur'an) are marked. In similar fashion, the plural forms of words are
indicated by adding an “s” to the singular, as in shaykhs (rather than
masha'ikh). When quoting directly from Chishti Sabiri informants, I note
the date and location of the interview. At the request of senior figures in the
silsila, however, I have withheld the names of individual respondents in the
interest of privacy and anonymity.
This book is not a comprehensive history of postcolonial Pakistan. Nor is
it an exhaustive account of either Indo-Muslim culture or Sufi tradition. By
narrowing my focus, I aim instead for a multilayered, nuanced, “thick
description” of a living Sufi order—on the ground, in context, and through
the words of its contemporary adepts. The following chapters explore Chishti
Sabiri Sufi identity from a variety of perspectives:
Chapter 1, “Sufism and the Politics of Islamic Identity,” contextualizes the
twenty-first-century order in Pakistan’s religious and political landscape
through a story of personal tragedy and national trauma. In April 2001 over
a hundred devotees were crushed to death in a mob stampede during the
annual pilgrimage at the shrine of Pakistan’s most famous Sufi saint, Baba
Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar (d. 1265). This chapter provides a firsthand
account of this accident and its aftermath. My analysis examines the diverse
responses of the state authorities, the shrine custodians, and the Chishti
Sabiri disciples to this incident. In doing so, I illustrate how Sufi piety and
practice act as a lightening rod in the public debates over Islamic authority
and authenticity in today’s Pakistan.
Chapter 2, “Muslim, Mystic, and Modern: Three Twentieth-Century Sufi
Masters,” charts the construction of contemporary Chishti Sabiri sainthood
in sacred biographies. Drawing on Urdu manuscripts and personal oral

histories, I trace how the lives and legacies of three modern Chishti Sabiri
masters are remembered in both texts and story-telling networks. I argue that
the hagiographical accounts of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi,
and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani offer unique insights into the historical con-
text of twentieth-century South Asia. At the same time, they each conform to
the traditional model of Indo-Muslim sainthood established in premodern
Sufi biographical literature.
Chapter 3, “Imagining Sufism: The Publication of Chishti Sabiri Identity,”
surveys how Chishti Sabiri Sufi identity is imagined, articulated, and dissemi-
nated in texts. Focusing on the shaykhs as writers and public ideologues,
I explore how their literary legacy positions Sufism as the essence of Islamic
orthodoxy and the foundation of Pakistani national identity. I focus in partic-
ular on two works by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani that together encapsulate
the key themes and rhetorical strategies of the contemporary Chishti Sabiri
writing project. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the silsila’s ongoing
publication campaign in Pakistan and Malaysia, highlighting its adroit use of
mass media technology to reach a broad, international audience.
Chapter 4, “Teaching Sufism: Networks of Community and Discipleship,”
traces how Chishti Sabiri knowledge is transmitted via interpersonal teaching
networks. My analysis explores the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order as a
moral community mediated by strict rules of etiquette and decorum (adab).
Drawing on extensive interviews, I survey the background and demograph-
ics of Chishti Sabiri disciples in Pakistan and Malaysia. Through personal oral
histories, murids narrate their own experiences of initiation (bay'at) and
interaction with a spiritual guide. These accounts reveal both the transforma-
tive power and underlying tensions of the fundamental master-disciple rela-
tionship. This ethnography also demonstrates how disciples draw upon texts
as well as the collective wisdom of their peers to make sense of their own
doubts, ambiguities, and experiences. I argue that these supplemental
sources of knowledge complement and clarify the hierarchical relationship
with the teaching shaykh.
Chapter 5, “Experiencing Sufism: The Discipline of Ritual Practice,”
explores how Chishti Sabiri identity is embodied and expressed in ritual per-
formance. My analysis combines theories of the body with a detailed ethnog-
raphy to illustrate how the rigorous discipline of the Sufi path (suluk)
transforms the acculturated, social self into a sacralized, moral self. The chap-
ter details three separate ritual complexes: dreams and dream interpretation;
rituals of remembrance (prayer, zikr, and muraqaba); and the annual pil-
grimage networks and musical assemblies at Sufi shrines ('urs and sama').
I argue that the continuity of these technologies of the self cements contem-
porary Chishti Sabiri identity. These rituals connect the current generation to
its premodern antecedents. At the same time, Chishti Sabiri spiritual practices
have been reformulated to accommodate the changing ground-level realities
of everyday life in twenty-first-century Pakistan and Malaysia.
Introduction 17
Engaging both texts (the written word) and ethnographic contexts (the
lived reality), each chapter in this book explores a different perspective on
Chishti Sabiri identity. Throughout, I emphasize the power of agency by
highlighting the distinct characters and personal histories of individual
Chishti Sabiri spiritual masters and their disciples. The resulting portrait
marks the contemporary Chishti Sabiri silsila as a complex, multidimensional
entity that is simultaneously
● a central marker in an imagined Pakistani (and now Malaysian) national

identity;
● a discursive tradition, inscribed in texts and debated in the public sphere;
● an expression of Muslim subjectivity that constructs a modern, moral self;
● and above all a spiritual discipline, communicated in a dynamic teaching
network and embodied in ritual performances.
In charting these interdependent trajectories, this book demonstrates how, at

the dawn of the twenty-first century, Chishti Sabiri Sufism remains a
dynamic, adaptive, living spiritual path—firmly rooted in tradition, yet
responsive to change.
Chapter 1
Sufism and the Politics

of I sl amic I dentity
On the night of April 1, 2001 more than one hundred Pakistani men lost
their lives, crushed to death in a mob stampede at the tomb of one of South
Asia’s most renowned Sufi saints: Baba Farid ad-Din Mas'ud Ganj-i Shakkar
(d. 1265). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and a range of personal inter-
views, this chapter offers a firsthand account of this tragedy and its aftermath.
My analysis surveys the divergent interpretations of the state authorities, the
shrine’s hereditary custodians, and a group of Chishti Sabiri Sufi disciples to
the causes and meanings of the disaster. I do so to explore a broader issue:
how Sufism functions as a lightening rod in the public debates over Islamic
identity and authority in today’s Pakistan. In a competition over the mantle of
Islamic authenticity, competing groups—state officials, Islamists, secular
nationalists, 'ulama, and Sufis themselves—frequently invoke Sufi doctrine,
history, and piety, alternatively defending and decrying the tradition’s Islamic
credentials. Most Pakistanis view Sufi saints such as Baba Farid as the embod-
iment of Islamic virtue—true faqirs (“impoverished ones”), who are commit-
ted to a life of piety, self-sacrifice, and public service. Yet the tradition’s
detractors dismiss them as charlatans and fakers. Faqir or faker? The disparate
answers to this deceptively simple question reveal a great deal about the way
in which Sufism is framed in contemporary Pakistan and throughout the mod-
ern Muslim world. As a case study of the politics of Islamic identity, this chap-
ter highlights how Chishti Sabiris transformed the Pakpattan tragedy from
story of personal loss and national trauma into a narrative of sacrifice and
sacralization, with Sufism repositioned as the center of Islamic orthodoxy.1
FAQIR or Faker? The Public Battle over Sufism

The 2001 Pakpattan tragedy and its consequences are an outgrowth of
Pakistan’s current ideological landscape (map 1.1). After all, Sufism does not
exist in a vacuum. Though rooted in personal spiritual piety, Sufism is always

mediated in public spaces. Like any religious discourse and practice, it is
impacted by (and responsive to) broader social, cultural, and political forces.
This has always been true, but global religious traditions have increasingly
assumed public, political roles since the 1980s. As sociologist Jose Casanova
illustrates, “Religions throughout the world are entering the public sphere
and the arena of political contestation not only to defend their traditional
turf, as they have done in the past, but also to participate in the very strug-
gles to define and set the modern boundaries between the private and public
spheres, between system and life-world, between legality and morality,
between individual and society, between family, civil society and state,
between nations, states, civilizations, and the world system.”2 Undermining
Map 1.1 Map of Pakistan

Source: The World Factbook
Sufism and the Politics of Islamic Identity 21
entrenched theories of modernization and secularization, the progressive

deprivatization of religion is a growing phenomenon in the twenty-first
century. The implications of this trend for social theorists are profound,
mandating a wholesale rethinking of the parameters of modernity.
While the public emergence of religious symbols and actors may be a
growing trend in the predominantly Christian West, this is nothing new in
the Muslim world. In fact, traditional networks of Islamic patronage,
religious leadership, and political organization blurred the boundaries
between the public and private spheres.3 This is certainly the norm in
Pakistan where sixty years after the nation’s traumatic birth religion and pol-
itics remain inextricably linked. In a nation deeply divided along ethnic, lin-
guistic, economic, and sectarian fault lines, both state policy and public
discourse focus on the relationship between religious and national identity. In
the face of the growing threats of regional instability and internal implosion,
politicians, the military hierarchy, religious leaders, and average Pakistanis
alike grapple over the roots of Islamic authority and authenticity and, by
extension, religion’s relationship to the ideology of the state. What is Islam
and who speaks for the tradition? What precisely is the role of religion in
framing the nation’s educational, legal, economic, social, and administrative
policies? Beyond the geopolitical realities of passports and maps, what exactly
does it mean to be Pakistani, and who represents the nation? Where is the
center of political authority and religious authenticity? Is it located in the
political machinery of the state within the nation’s capital, Islamabad
(the “abode of Islam”), the religious schools (madrasas) of the traditional
religious scholars ('ulama), the public mosques, or the ubiquitous shrines of
Sufi saints? Who knows and who decides?
These questions have dominated public discourse since the end of British
colonialism and independence in 1947. From the beginning there has always
been an unresolved tension in the constructions of a Pakistani national iden-
tity, despite frequent appeals to a reified, universal Islam. As anthropologist
Katherine Ewing notes, “The idea of a distinctive ‘Pakistani Islam,’ the prin-
ciple of difference that is the rationale for the founding of a nation-state sep-
arate from other nation-states, was inconsistent with the universality of Islam
at the ideological level and with reality of diversity amongst the practitioners
of Islam who were to be subsumed under the signifier ‘Pakistani.’”4 Neither
Islam nor Pakistan are inherently united. Yet in a time of immense ambiguity
and acute anxiety, the contestation over Pakistan’s Islamic identity has
assumed an unprecedented urgency with profound implications for Muslims
throughout South Asia, and beyond.
Living in an embattled region of fluid borders and contested identities,
twenty-first-century Pakistanis are confronted daily with the legacy of
Partition: the political entrenchment of the Pakistani military, the instability
of regional politics, burgeoning economic debt and endemic unemployment,
waves of Afghan refugees, the explosion of drug and smuggling operations,
the proliferation of a culture of guns and violence, and the spread of militant
Islam and sectarianism. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the fall
of the short-lived Taliban regime in Afghanistan, these trends have only been
amplified and exacerbated.5 As the struggle between the military state, inde-
pendent political parties, and a wide array of religious groups continues to
intensify, the country now finds itself at yet another crossroads.
The national elections of October 2002 appear to signal a further shift in
the local political landscape. Though never successful at the ballot box
before, a coalition of religious political parties, the Muttahida Majlis-i Amal
(MMA), made unprecedented gains, capturing 19 percent of the seats in the
National Assembly, a controlling majority of the Provincial Assembly of the
Northwest Frontier Province, and an upper hand as the largest party in
Baluchistan. Pro-Taliban, anti-American, predominantly ethnic Pashtun, and
fervently opposed to the government’s attempts to reform madrasa educa-
tion and reign in the Kashmir insurgency, the MMA now presents a direct
challenge to the government of General/President Pervez Musharraf and its
pledge to turn the country back toward democracy.6
These electoral results were not entirely unexpected, however. The inte-
gration of religious parties within the institutions of the national government
can be seen as the culmination of a gradual process of Islamization that has
dominated Pakistani politics for the past quarter of a century. Islamic symbols
and rhetoric have been increasingly visible in the Pakistani public sphere since
the late 1970s. As a new, multiethnic postcolonial state with weak notions of
national identity, the Pakistani state opportunistically embedded Islam in pol-
itics in order to legitimize its hegemony and expand its powers. As Seyyed
Vali Reza Nasr illustrates, “[S]tate-led Islamization is in essence the indige-
nization of the postcolonial state—embedding it in the local value systems.
The dialectic of state expansion and social resistance to it has forced at least
some postcolonial states to realize that it is more efficient to be Islamic than
not.”7 Although Islamist values and rhetoric now frame public debate in
Pakistan as never before, the discourse over Islam is neither static nor mono-
lithic. In fact, it never has been. Yet today the expanding numbers of new reli-
gious intellectuals and social actors who openly contest the mantle of Islamic
authority and authenticity in the Pakistani public sphere have only raised the
stakes even higher.
The increased fragmentation of religious authority is a common trend not
just in Pakistan but throughout the contemporary Muslim world. Within this
ongoing debate over the parameters of Islamic orthodoxy, Sufism remains an
emotive, multivalent, and highly contested signifier in postcolonial Pakistan.
With their bold claims to experiential knowledge, authority, and authenticity,
individual Sufis have found themselves embroiled in controversy throughout
Muslim history. The polemics against the tradition were further intensified
and amplified under colonial regimes and the subsequent proliferation of
independent, neocolonial Muslim states.8 The increasing attacks on and
widespread marginalization of Sufism by both secular nationalists and
Islamists are a distinctly modern phenomenon, however. In fact, the attack
on Sufism runs counter to Islamic intellectual history and pervasive cultural
norms. As Carl Ernst notes,
Ironically, as a result of strategic successes by fundamentalist movements in

certain key regions like Arabia, and the massive oil wealth that fell into the
lap of the Saudi regime, many contemporary Muslims have been taught a story
of the Islamic religious tradition from which Sufism has been rigorously
excluded. It is ironic because as recently as the late eighteenth century, and for
much of the previous millennium, most of the outstanding religious scholars of
Mecca, Medina, and the great cities of the Muslim world were intimately
engaged with what we today call Sufism. It is doubly ironic because the funda-
mentalist story is belied by the religious practices of more than half of today’s
Muslim population.9
In South Asia, the British Raj attempted to appropriate and manipulate

Sufi tradition—its sacred sites and heroes—for political gain. Recognizing
the importance of Sufi shrines as loci of regional identity and the power of
hereditary Sufi leaders as moral exemplars and mediators, the British colonial
administration actively incorporated Sufism into its system of local politics
and patronage. As Ewing argues, “The hereditary saints [sajjada nishin]
were seen primarily in terms of their economic power. British policy, espe-
cially in the Punjab and Sind, was to treat them in essentially the same way
that landlords and tribal leaders were treated . . . They tried to maintain the
traditional social structure intact, securing the loyalty of the pirs, landlords,
and chiefs by reinforcing their economic positions and educating them in the
British tradition.”10 At times, the British interfered directly in the adminis-
tration of local shrines such as Pakattan, going so far as to mediate succession
disputes in colonial courts. As historian David Gilmartin demonstrates, under
colonial rule the Sufi shrine’s traditional position “as a hinge between the
culture of the locality and the larger Muslim community” remained intact
while the role of the saint’s living heirs was increasingly politicized.11
The politics of Sufism were only amplified in the wake of Partition. In an
effort to embed Islamic symbols in a political ideology, the architects of the
fledgling Pakistani state continued the British policy of direct control over
Sufi shrines and Sufi leaders. Beginning with the secular government of the
military leader Ayub Khan (1958–1969), successive Pakistani regimes
attempted to link themselves with Sufi religious authority. “The Sufi was the
symbol these secularists chose to represent their position and to legitimate
their position as leaders of a Muslim democracy,” argues Ewing. “They strove
to enhance the shrines and the Sufi origins of these shrines for the glorifica-
tion of Islam and Pakistan. At the same time they sought to strip the heredi-
tary pirs of their traditional functions.”12 The state’s hegemony over religious
spaces and local religious leaders was formally institutionalized with the
passage of the West Pakistan Waqf Properties Ordinance of 1959. This act
provided legal precedent for the state to appropriate control over religious
endowments and to manage shrines, mosques, and other properties
dedicated to religious purposes. The result was a further dissolution of the
independence and political power of both the hereditary Sufi families and the
local 'ulama.
The Pakistani state used this newfound platform to aggressively forward
its own economic and social policies. As Nasr notes, “By taking over the
management of the shrines, state leaders were able to use them to propa-
gate a new interpretation of Sufism and rural Islam as compatible with
development. Sufi doctrines were depicted as enjoining a positive work
ethic, and rural religious festivals were used as venues for agricultural and
industrial fairs. By becoming the keeper of shrines, the state was able to find
a presence in rural areas, which was otherwise closed to it by the landed
elite.”13 This official policy of co-optation and control expanded under the
successive regime of Zulfikar 'Ali Bhutto (1971–1979) and during the
Islamization campaign of General Zia al-Haq (1979–1989). In Pakistan,
Sufi history, sacred spaces, and spiritual luminaries now form an important
component of the administrative machinery and political theater of the
state. In official government literature and the public posturing of politi-
cians, Sufi shrines are marked and celebrated as sacred national spaces,
while premodern Muslim saints are publicly embraced as poets, social
reformers, and protonationalists.
Despite these determined efforts to appropriate the tradition’s symbolic
capital, however, the state’s relationship with Sufism has always been plagued
by an underlying ambiguity. The colonial and postcolonial state’s policies, in
fact, never fully erased a deep-seated ambivalence toward contemporary Sufi
masters and the continuity of Sufi ritual practices. Never fully integrated into
the state’s ideology and institutions, the living Sufi master always remained
an ambiguous, liminal figure. In Ewing’s assessment,
Within the framework of a colonial ideology, the Sufi faqir (mendicant)

represented the epitome of indifference, a refusal to be captured by the “natu-
ralness” of the colonial order. The more threatening the presence of the faqir,
the more demeaning were the images used to “capture” him, images that con-
tinue to circulate in postcolonial discourse as versions of modernity, Islam, and
secularism vie for dominance in the political arena. The Sufi saint occupies a
contested position in these contemporary debates, which have inevitably been
molded by the colonial experience out of which Pakistan emerged as a nation.14
In spite of its best efforts, Sufi doctrine and ritual practice have never been
fully preempted and controlled by the state. Communicated orally via the
intimate master-disciple (pir-murid) relationship and experienced primarily
in private ritual arenas, Sufi knowledge and technologies of selfhood survived
and thrived beyond the purview of the state. In Ewing’s apt summation,
“[U]ltimately, there is an excess of meaning embodied in Sufi practice and
expressed in Sufi identities. It is an excess that escaped colonial gaze(s) and is
not fully captured by modernity as a discourse or a practice.”15 In my view, it
is precisely this “excess of meaning” that is the key to understanding the
Chishti Sabiri response to the tragedy in Pakpattan.
The 2001 Pakpattan Tragedy

The regional shrine complex in the small pilgrimage town of Pakpattan—120
miles southwest of Lahore—has for centuries served as a central marker in the
regional history of Punjab (figure 1.1). Since the thirteenth century, the
tomb of the saint, Baba Farid, has linked the local population to a wider uni-
verse of Islamic piety and Chishti Sufi spiritual hierarchy. As historian Richard
Eaton notes,
The shrine of Baba Farid in Pakpattan provides a striking example of how Islam,
the religion par excellence “of the Book,” has been in one instance mediated
among common villagers most of whom were illiterate. For them it was the
shrine, and less so the Book, which manifested the juncture “where the con-
trasted poles of Heaven and Earth met.” Through its elaborate rituals, grand
processions and colorful pageantry, the shrine displayed a sense of divine mag-
nificence and divine mercy. It displayed, in short, the Court of God. Not that
Baba Farid himself was confused with God. This could of course have been
blasphemous idolatry . . . Rather, though the Court of God as a cosmological
construct seemed to lie beyond the devotee’s immediate grasp, he did have a
“friend in court,” as it were, who represented his interests there. This “friend in
court,” this special pleader, was Baba Farid.16
The legacy of Partition has arguably elevated the shrine’s symbolic position
even higher. In the absence of other religious communities—the Hindu, Jain,
Figure 1.1 The Shrine of Baba Farid ad-Din Mas'ud Ganj-i Shakkar (d. 1265), Pakpattan,
Pakistan
or Sikh “Other”—Pakpattan is no longer a site of intercommunal conflict or

cooperation. Instead, the shrine is now marked as exclusively Muslim space—
a controversial signifier where the parameters and practices of Islam itself are
defined, delineated, and contested. In similar fashion, shifting geopolitical
boundaries effectively disrupted Sufi sacred geography (wilayat). The reali-
ties of new passports and the redrawing of local maps made pilgrimage to the
major Chishti shrines in India—including Ajmer Sharif, Kalyar Sharif, and
Nizam ad-Din in Delhi—prohibitively difficult for Pakistani Muslims. As a
result, Pakpattan now stands as the unrivaled center of a distinctly Pakistani
Sufism.
Late in the night of April 1, 2001—the fifth day of Muharram, the first
month of the Muslim lunar calendar—an atmosphere of intense piety per-
vaded the shrine complex. It was the eve of Baba Farid’s death anniversary
('urs) and, as they have for centuries, tens of thousands of devotees inundated
the provincial town of Pakpattan to pay their respects to the preeminent saint
of Pakistan’s Punjab.17 In keeping with tradition, the faithful waited for hours
in the long lines weaving through the town, hoping to eventually pass
directly through the narrow Gate of Heaven (bihishti darwaza) and into the
holy man’s presence. This famous southern door of the saint’s tomb remains
closed throughout the year until the evening of the anniversary when it is
opened by the Diwan, a direct lineal descendant of the saint and the shrine’s
official representative (sajjada nishin). To pass through this threshold is the
ultimate goal of every pious pilgrim—a direct, salvational encounter with
Baba Farid’s living grace (baraka), a ritual reenactment of the saint’s eternal
union ('urs, or “marriage”) with God. A description of this ceremony
recorded by a European visitor in 1833 conveys something of the intensity—
and continuity—of this transformative experience:
Numbers of pilgrims, both Hindus and Mussalmans, come to visit the shrine,
and all who pass through this doorway are considered saved from the fires of
perdition. The doorway is about two feet wide, and cannot be passed without
stopping, and the apartment itself is not capable of containing thirty people
crowded together . . . A superlative heaven is allotted to those who are first to
enter the tomb on the day mentioned. The rush for precedence may, therefore,
be better imagined than described. The crowd of pilgrims is said to be
immense, and as they egress from the sacred doorway, after having rubbed their
foreheads on the foot of the saint’s grave, the air resounds with their shouts of
“Farid! Farid!”18
The night of April 1, 2001 was a night unlike any other, however. As the
pious pilgrims flocked to the shrine, jostling toward Baba Farid’s tomb in
eager anticipation, a tragedy was unfolding that would transform the occa-
sion from a raucous public celebration into a somber mass funeral, a tableau
of confusion, chaos, and grief.
The majority of the victims had been among the first to offer their devotions
at the saint’s tomb. Exiting the crowded central courtyard, they ascended
the narrow stairwell at the extreme north end of the shrine, a passageway
typically reserved for the Diwan and his personal guests. At the same
moment, an impatient crowd of several thousand onlookers broke through a
weak police cordon and descended upon them from above. In the melee that
followed, the pilgrims were knocked backward and pinned against the stair-
case’s thick stone walls. Panicked by the violent onslaught, a police contin-
gent posted at the entrance point made the fateful decision to close and lock
the doors, sealing off the only means of escape. In an instant, a private
exit became a public entrance—with disastrous consequences. By the time it
became clear what had happened and the heavy wooden doors were thrown
open it was too late. Pilgrims had become martyrs, crushed to death.
Reporter Tahir Jehangir recounted the disturbing scene for the Lahore-based
English language weekly, The Friday Times. His sense of helplessness and
outrage are palpable:
Soon the commotion was replaced by a deathly silence. When the gate was
opened again the sight was ghastly. I am told that many men had been crushed
against the walls . . . it was like a wall of dead bodies. They started pulling peo-
ple out. Some were still alive but most were dead. All night the dead were being
carried out. How many died? The newspapers reported over forty, but I can
vouch for the fact that there were many more. The poor families just took their
dead away, leaving officialdom to do its count, carry out the enquiries, pass the
blame to somebody else, and rule on.19
I too was there that night, accompanying a select group of Chishti Sabiri
Sufi disciples (murids). The group included more than a hundred and fifty
men and women, most of them Pakistanis but including a large contingent
from Malaysia as well. They had traveled to Pakpattan along with their spiri-
tual guide, Shaykh Siraj 'Ali, for a week of intensive spiritual immersion. At
the personal invitation of Diwan Maudud Mas'ud Chishti, the disciples
entered the shrine complex early in the evening, long before the doors were
opened to the public. Dressed in white shalwar kamiz and following the strict
rules of etiquette and decorum (adab), the male disciples formed a series of
straight rows parallel to the main door of the saint’s tomb. Surrounding
Shaykh Siraj, they sat or stood in quiet contemplation (muraqaba) as the
female disciples looked down from the rooftop balcony above. This medita-
tive calm was gradually eclipsed by a growing tumult as the crowds began to
pour into the compound to participate in the public ritual ceremonies.
Following evening prayers, the Chishti Sabiri disciples dispersed into smaller
groups, merging into the waves of humanity awaiting the highlight of the
evening: the opening of the bihishti darwaza.
After a prolonged delay, the Diwan arrived along with his entourage.
A small group, among them Shaykh Siraj 'Ali and a number of senior Chishti
Sabiri disciples, accompanied the procession into the shrine’s inner sanctum
for ritual prayers. At the end of this private ceremony, the door was opened
and the surging crowds began filing into the cramped space of the saint’s
grave to the clamorous shouts of “Ya Farid, Haq Farid!” As the Diwan
mounted a large stage in the center of the courtyard to distribute saffron-soaked
strips of cloth known as pechas to the assembled masses, the Chishti Sabiri
group exited the compound through the northern gate, as was the custom.
This time, however, they were trapped in the stampede. When the barricaded
doors were finally opened, Shaykh Siraj and a dozen of his disciples were
found among the wounded, stunned, and battered but alive. A fourteen-
year-old boy from the group was not so fortunate, however, perishing amid
the melee. And this was no ordinary boy. He was the son of a prominent
devotee and, significantly, the great-grandson of the prominent Chishti Sabiri
master, Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah (1877–1951).
I reached the northern gate a half hour after the incident, having made my
way along with the enraptured throng through the bihishti darwaza and into
the cramped quarters of the saint’s tomb. It was a harrowing and moving
experience. I emerged from the inner sanctum both exhausted and exhila-
rated. The reverie, however, did not last long. In the hope of locating my
hosts whom I had lost in the crowd, I made my way toward the shrine’s
northern exit through a narrow passageway that suddenly opened onto a sur-
real scene—the aftermath of the stampede. In a great tumult of commotion,
people were frantically struggling to assist groups of injured men while others
carried off the broken bodies of their fallen relatives and friends. Stretched
out in the middle of the white marble courtyard were lines of twisted,
contorted corpses, strangely silent amid the unfolding chaos.
While searching for my hosts, I met two Malaysian murids, both of them
medical doctors. They recounted the horrific events and their own efforts to
help revive and resuscitate the victims, including the group of Chishti Sabiri
pir-bhais (fellow disciples) injured in the crush. Overwhelmed by this sober-
ing news and the devastation around me, I returned to the Chishti Sabiri
compound via the narrow, twisting alleyways that flank the shrine’s northern
border. There I found groups of disciples huddled together in stunned,
muted grief. They were deeply concerned about the condition of Shaykh Siraj
and a number of other senior disciples, but they were devastated by the loss
of the young boy.
As the scale of the horror became evident, the Chishti Sabiri disciples tried
to make sense of what had happened. They struggled to find a deeper mean-
ing for this unprecedented tragedy at the sacred site of one of the spiritual
luminaries of their own tradition.20 What had gone wrong? Why had so many
died at Pakpattan of all places, and on this of all nights? Who was to blame?
What did this tragedy signal for the shrine of Baba Farid, for the life of the
Chishti Sabiri order, and for the future of Sufi pilgrimage and ritual practices?
In the days and weeks that followed, the Pakistani press investigated these
same questions, spurring a lively public debate.
The Pakpattan tragedy immediately brought the latent tensions and ambi-
guities in the state’s relationship with institutional Sufism into full view. In
response to the public outcry over the loss of life and widespread accusations
of corruption and incompetence in the local and national press, the govern-
ment conducted a hasty inquiry. The local police and district administration
were quick to blame the incident directly on the actions of the shrine’s chief
custodian, Diwan Maudud Mas'ud Chishti. According to the authorities, the

Diwan had delayed the public ceremonies and the opening of the bihishti dar-
waza by four hours while bickering over the annual payment allotted to him
from the Awqaf Department. The day after the incident, the lead article in the
national Urdu newspaper Jang quoted the district commissioner who insisted
that this financial quarrel precipitated the crisis, forcing the long delays that
prompted the impatient crowds to overrun the helpless police forces.21
As part of an investigation ordered by the governor of Punjab in Lahore,
I was subsequently invited to accompany three senior Chishti Sabiri disciples
to the home of a prominent minister assigned to assist the local authorities in
their investigation. After listening to the testimonies, the minister promptly
summarized his own findings in the case. Predictably, his opinions echoed the
modernist and rationalist rhetoric that characterized the official government
response. While acknowledging that Baba Farid had been a great saint and
poet, the minister dismissed the shrine custodians as profiteers, mired in
nepotism, intransigence, and greed. The events of the 'urs, he insisted, had
little to do with “real Islam,” and the mob stampede was only to be expected
from the illiterate, ignorant masses drawn to the shrine’s carnival-like atmos-
phere. The police and district administration, the minister maintained, were
simply overwhelmed by an unruly mob—and understandably so since their
resources were already stretched thin by the state’s concerted efforts to pre-
vent sectarian violence throughout the district during the month of
Muharram. While acknowledging that further precautions and logistical
changes would be needed to avoid a repeat of this incident in the future,
he concluded that the Diwan was ultimately responsible for the tragedy
(April 11, 2001, Lahore).
In response to the public declarations of the state authorities, the shrine’s
hereditary custodians spoke out publicly against the heavy-handed tactics and
culpability of the local police and district administration. In an article in the
English daily newspaper The Nation, Badr Moeenuddin, the Diwan’s mater-
nal uncle, denounced the government’s accusations while defending his fam-
ily’s honor. With photographs and a schematic drawing of the shrine complex
as evidence, his article offers a detailed summary of the mechanics of this
unprecedented logistical breakdown. Describing how the newly appointed
district administration altered long-standing policies, Badr Moeenuddin
blames poor crowd control and security arrangements as the underlying
cause of the stampede. Attacking the state’s version of the incident, he notes
that the tragedy took place some two hours after the Diwan’s arrival for the
door-opening ceremony—a fact, he asserts, that proves that the delay had
absolutely nothing to do with chaos that followed. In a final rhetorical move,
Badr Moeenuddin defends the sanctity of the 'urs itself, condemning unwar-
ranted police violence as the real cause for the crowd’s unruliness: “They [pil-
grims] are full of reverence with a burning desire to pass through the door,
but are frightened of the police lathi-charge so at the slightest chance they
tend to make a dash to the entrance. Invariably they are beaten back, but they
keep waiting for the rare opening. This was the cause of the tragedy.”22
These widely divergent renditions of events typify the public discourse

(and dissonance) over Sufism in contemporary Pakistan. Though the state
authorities and shrine custodians held each other ultimately responsible, both
camps viewed the tragedy as the result of administrative mismanagement—a
breakdown in logistics, communication, and the allocation of resources.
What is missing from both accounts are the experiences and views of actual
participants, the voices of everyday people who made the pilgrimage to the
shrine that night and suffered the consequences. Among Chishti Sabiri Sufi
adepts, the suffering and loss at Pakpattan was interpreted in a remarkably
different fashion. While defending the Diwan, they turned to more spiritual
explanations, sacralizing the loss of life in terms of ritual sacrifice and martyr-
dom (shahadat). An outgrowth of a fundamentally different epistemology
and worldview, this alternative interpretation stands in marked contrast to the
logic of the modernist, rationalist state. In my view, it can also be read as a
statement of resistance, a counternarrative to the hegemony of the state. As
Pnina Werbner and Helene Basu suggest, “For the citizens of postcolonial
societies, it is often the opposition between a morally grounded charisma and
the rationalized authority of the state which more accurately reflects the
experiential reality of modernity. What needs thus to be theorized is the
nature of charismatic (saintly) dissent and opposition to the bureaucratic dom-
ination of the state.”23 With this in mind, I examine the Chishti Sabiri inter-
pretation of the Pakpattan tragedy as a salient example of the order’s
overarching project to reclaim Sufism as Islamic orthodoxy.
Chishti Sabiri Sufism as

Islamic Orthodoxy
Among Chishti Sabiri disciples, the death of the great-grandson of Shaykh
Muhammad Zauqi Shah, along with the injuries to Shaykh Siraj 'Ali and a
number of prominent murids, elicited a great deal of personal and collective
introspection. When asked about their experiences and reflections, disciples
uniformly expressed profound sorrow at the appalling loss of life. At the same
time, they voiced anger and disgust at what they perceived as a gross distor-
tion of the facts—and a woeful ignorance of Sufi traditions—in the newspa-
per coverage and the public statements of local authorities. According to
disciples, both the state and certain religious leaders used the incident for
political leverage. Both glossed over the spiritual dimensions of the 'urs in an
attempt to assign blame elsewhere. Condemning the pilgrimage rites as little
more than the superstitious customs of the uneducated rural masses, these
critics of Sufism dismissed the tragedy as the regrettable—but altogether pre-
dictable—outcome of a frenzied mob. In response to such critiques, a senior
murid argued,
There have since been rather strange suggestions from some of the local
'ulama who say that they should just keep the door (bihishti darwaza) open all
year long. They do not realize that people would still just come on those nights
[of the 'urs celebration]. Reading the newspaper report it is clear these people
just do not understand the rituals at all. They assume that these are all just sim-
ple, ignorant, rural folks who have these beliefs. These reporters are as ignorant
as foreign outsiders. People have become so distant from Sufism . . . There is a
Wahhabi in my office and he told me, “This is what happens at these shrines!”
I asked him to explain the stampedes at Hajj. He had no response. (April 8,
2001, Lahore)
By drawing a direct parallel between the loss of life in Pakpattan and the fre-
quent incidents that occur during the paradigmatic annual pilgrimage to
Mecca, this devotee implies that both rites exhibit an orthodoxy incumbent
on all Muslims.
Other disciples were even more pointed in their critique, defending the
shrine custodians while attacking the hypocrisy of the state. A German con-
vert and prominent disciple who has lived in Pakistan for almost thirty years
wrote a response to the tragedy, which he subsequently shared with me.
Surveying the recent history of Sufism’s relations with the state, he laments
that the shrine custodians were “coerced into surrendering the management
of the shrine” to the Awqaf Department. This co-optation, he asserts, con-
stituted a radical break with a six-hundred-and-fifty-year-old tradition that
“not only violated the natural propriety rights of the Diwan’s family but
dragged an institution of an essentially spiritual nature for reasons of revenue
collection onto the mundane plane of government administration, and this in
itself constitutes a very serious breach of etiquette. Things like this never go
unpunished, even though the reprisal might not strike right away.”24
Turning his attention to the root causes of the tragedy, the author points
to the opportunistic posturing of local authorities at the 'urs ceremonies. He
laments the officials’ utter disregard for the sanctity of the space and the
proper decorum (adab) mandated by the occasion. From this perspective, the
crass violation of the sacred realm of religion (din) by the profane politics of
the mundane world (dunya) is the real cause of the unprecedented disaster at
Pakpattan. This written account echoes what I heard from numerous murids
in person. It constitutes, in effect, a counterpolemic to the state’s official
interpretations of the causes of the tragedy.
Disaffected by the response of the state, Chishti Sabiri disciples turned to
more spiritual explanations for the traumatic events that impacted them so
profoundly. With a firm belief that nothing accidental happens in proximity
to a saint’s tomb, murids reasoned that the loss of life must be sacralized and
understood in terms of martyrdom (shahadat). The German disciple makes
this logic explicit: “Against whom was this outburst of divine vengeance
directed? Certainly not the more than one hundred people who breathed
their last there. They, or at least a good number of them, embraced shahadat
(martyrdom) . . . It is part of our faith to believe that every man’s time of
death is predestined, and the fact that those people died there in these cir-
cumstances instead of at home in their beds, or anywhere else, I would see
rather as a reward than a punishment.”25
In the Chishti Sabiri alternate narrative, the death of the young boy is
rationalized as a ritual sacrifice. As a member of a sayyid family (i.e., a lineal
descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) and the great-grandson of a
renowned Sufi shaykh, his martyrdom becomes an act of Divine will—an
atonement for the lack of piety and propriety shown by others at Baba Farid’s
'urs. In the words of a prominent female disciple, “I believe it was ordained
to happen. Sometimes the saints, they do interfere in things, in worldly mat-
ters. Maybe now some changes will take place. Our Holy Prophet—God
bless him and grant him salvation—his family is always there to give sacrifices.
Right from the day of Karbala, the Prophet’s family has offered themselves
for sacrifices like these . . . He [the young boy] was a lovely child, a perfect
human being. I really believe he had completed suluk [the Sufi path]”
(June 17, 2001, Lahore).
This revealing account memorializes the deceased child as the very
embodiment of Sufi virtue. For an audience steeped in Sufi tradition, his pre-
ternatural knowledge of spiritual matters, mastery of ritual practices, and
careful attention to the rules of decorum affirm his lofty spiritual status as a
successor to the legacy of his great-grandfather and, by extension, the
Prophet himself. The memory of the young boy’s precocity also marks a
sharp contrast to the clumsy and disrespectful actions of the representatives
of the state who, by implication, are ultimately held responsible for his
untimely death. The invocation of Karbala in this context is a particularly res-
onant and evocative rhetorical device. It links the Pakpattan tragedy to sacred
history by suggesting that, once again, the Prophet’s heirs have suffered at
the hands of corrupt political rulers obsessed only with worldly power.
While sacralizing the tragedy in terms of martyrdom, Chishti Sabiris also
drew broad moral lessons from the painful events in Pakpattan. As murids
recounted their experiences in private and public contexts, the tragedy came
to serve as an important heuristic device. Another senior female disciple, for
example, recounted how the women disciples had responded to the news of
the tragedy with pious resignation and patient forbearance, even in the midst
of overwhelming pain and grief. In her words,
Whatever God wants, it has to happen. People who had to learn something,
and they will learn from this incident. It could have happened anywhere, but
the best thing is that it happened there, right in front of Hazrat Baba Sahab. He
[the young boy] was only fourteen years old. It was terribly sad, but it gave us
patience. I was amazed, among the women, even the boy’s mother did not cry
out. There was no wailing and no one had to carry her. We all just sat and
prayed. Everyone knew that this was the will of God. When every leaf moves
only with the will of God, how can you start wailing and crying over this?
(June 17, 2001, Lahore)
According to disciples, this ability to maintain comportment in the face of

trauma is itself a sign of advanced spiritual development—the realization of
the key Sufi virtues of patience (sabr) and selfless surrender to the Divine will
(tawwakul).
This emphasis on the power of redemptive suffering was further high-

lighted in descriptions of Shaykh Siraj 'Ali’s endurance and unwavering calm
in the face of the chaos. In the weeks and months following the incident,
anecdotes about the shaykh’s conduct and composure circulated widely.
These accounts provided Chishti Sabiri disciples with instructive examples
of the transformative power of faith. The intensity and importance of the
experience is clearly conveyed in the words of a female Malaysian murid, a
medical doctor who helped treat Shaykh Siraj’s injuries:
I touched his wounds and the faizan [spiritual grace] was very strong. That is
when I understood the meaning of the majesty of a saint. You read about it, but
you do not understand it until you see it. He was in pain, he was in trouble, yet
there was this calm. His face was so serene, so beautiful. In my whole life I will
never forget that night! Somehow along with the majesty of Hazrat Siraj Sahab,
I could feel the majesty of Allah. I felt His presence. Being in the shaykh’s pres-
ence is Allah’s presence. I felt it so strongly that night, even amid all the tears,
all the sadness. I just remember all the faizan. There was electricity in the air.
(October 6, 2001, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Faizan—literally meaning “overflowing” or “abundance”—is a common

term used to describe the Divine blessing and power that radiate from sacred
places and holy persons.26 Similar to the Arabic term baraka, it is understood
as a marker of sacrality, here described in visceral, material terms as an electric
charge or a surge of energy.
The palpable sense of intensity and awe conveyed in this anecdote is
echoed the recollections of numerous Chishti Sabiri disciples present in
Pakpattan that April night. In interviews, many disciples recalled strange
circumstances and portents of impending disaster—signs they had failed to
understand fully and interpret at the time but which later appeared highly
significant. A number of disciples narrated dreams that they experienced in
the days leading up to the 'urs: visions of Chishti Sabiri shaykhs, the death of
family members and, in the case of one female murid, an attack by a black
goat. Several disciples recalled being plagued with feelings of unease and anx-
iety on the day of the tragedy, while others noted sudden shifts in the weather
as the ceremonies began that evening. Significantly, recollections of the limi-
nality of that particular night were not limited to those present in Pakpattan.
A group of Malaysian disciples who were unable to make the trip to Pakistan
gathered together at a private home in Kuala Lumpur on the evening of the
'urs. Listening to recordings of sama' on a small cassette player, they com-
memorated the death of anniversary of Baba Farid on the opposite side of the
Indian Ocean. As a female Malaysian disciple attests, these women experi-
enced something of the intensity of the experience as well:
We celebrated the Muharram 'urs here [in Kuala Lumpur], a small gathering in
our house. It was mostly women. The faizan that night was fantastic. We
thought we were going into hal [a state of ecstasy], all of us. We were so scared
that we immediately stopped. It was fantastic though. You feel it yourself. The
rhythm of the qawwali [music], you want to go along with it. Your body wants
to get up and dance along with the rhythm. That was the first time I experi-
enced this—and not just me, all of us who were there that night. It was that
same night, around the time of the mob stampede in Pakpattan Sharif.
(October 3, 2001, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Narrated and circulated among Chishti Sabiri disciples, these stories and
retroactive interpretations now form part of the order’s collective memory.
For Sufi disciples who live in a sacralized universe, these oral accounts imbue
the trauma suffered at the saint’s 'urs with a deeper sense of meaning and
purpose. In sharing their personal experiences with their peers, murids have
effectively discovered a “mode of narrating, imagining, re-presenting those
events that, at least to some extent, does their extremity justice.”27 In effect,
the Chishti Sabiris’ alternative response to the Pakpattan tragedy shifts the
discursive frame from the level of personal tragedy into a story of national
trauma. It transforms the loss of individual lives at the shrine into a symptom
of the internal moral decay of the nation. According to this reading,
Pakistan’s fundamental loss of values and betrayal of tradition had to be
accounted for and rectified—and here death is transformed into a ritual sac-
rifice that allows for healing, renewal, and redemption. Through a logic and
worldview directly opposed to the rationalist discourse of the state, these oral
testimonies do more besides providing suture to the pain and trauma of suf-
fering: by sacralizing the suffering at Pakpattan, this counternarrative also
marks the shrine—and the legacy of its patron saint, Baba Farid—as the right-
ful inheritance of the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order.
The Chishti Sabiri response to the Pakpattan tragedy exemplifies the
order’s overarching project to put Islam back into Islamic Sufism. In
response to their detractors who denigrate Sufism as a perversion of Islam’s
normative traditions, Chishti Sabiri practitioners are quick to defend the
orthodoxy of Sufi piety. They reclaim the Prophetic model (sunna) and the
normative boundaries of Islamic law (shari'a) as the foundations of their own
faith and practice. In the words of one murid, a conservative, middle-aged
woman who lived for twenty years in both Saudi Arabia and Turkey and who
now runs an informal religious school (madrasa) for women in Lahore,
Our Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation, was the greatest Sufi.
Self-negation in everything, that was his way. Yet, at the same time, he was so
disciplined. Each moment of his life was within the shari'a. What is Sufism
[tasawwuf ]? It is self-negation, controlling your self [nafs]. And what is
shari'a? Shari'a is there to guide you, to keep you within bounds. If you do not
have boundaries, you just do whatever you want to do . . . Tasawwuf keeps the
Prophet’s life, his role model alive. For the 'ulama, for the people who are just
practicing the shari'a without the spirit of it, it is dry. The spirit of shari'a is
tasawwuf. (March 9, 2001, Lahore)
This is a typical refrain. Far from being a peripheral practice, or the out-
growth of external cultural accretions, Sufism is repositioned in Chishti Sabiri
narratives—both oral and written—at the very heart of Muslim history,

belief, and practice.
This is further exemplified in a private letter written by Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani to a female disciple in Malaysia. In a didactic voice, the
shaykh explains that Sufism is sanctioned by both the Qur'an and the Prophet
Muhammad. Critiquing Islamist—in this case, Wahhabi—ideology, he val-
orizes Sufism as the very essence of Islam:
Sufism is not against the Qur'an or Hadith, even by a fraction of an inch. In

fact, no one in the world has obeyed the Qur'an and Hadith as much as the
Sufis have. They are the most ardent lovers of Allah Most High, and sacrifice
everything for him. The Holy Prophet preached this sort of life, and turned his
Companions into the greatest awliya' Allah [“Friends of God” or saints, near-
est the Almighty. The Wahabbis do not believe in the awliya' Allah. They sim-
ply ignore the verse in the Qur'an which says, “The awliya' Allah, neither do
they fear nor despair” [Qur'an 10:63].28
What is at stake here is the definition of Islamic orthodoxy. All sides claim
authority and authenticity, arguing about who knows and who has a right to
speak for Islam. Of course, this is nothing new and certainly not unique to
the Chishti Sabiris. In fact, the public wrangling over the roots of orthodoxy
has continued unabated throughout Islamic history. As historian Daniel
Brown notes, this underlying ambiguity has never been resolved: “It is a ten-
sion between principles of stability and of flexibility, between the authority of
the past and the exigencies of the present, and between scripture and tradi-
tion. Most fundamentally, however, it reflects a struggle over the question of
who has the authority to represent the Prophet. What individuals, groups, or
institutions are the true mediators of the Prophetic legacy, standing in his
place and speaking with his voice?”29 Like many premodern and revivalist
Sufi masters before them, contemporary Chishti Sabiris see themselves as the
rightful heirs to the legacy of the Prophet. The order is distinguished, how-
ever, by its unique response to the challenges and changes spurred by
Partition and its particular vision of a sunna-centric and shari'a-minded
Sufism couched in a distinctively Pakistani idiom. Subsequent chapters
explore this complex dynamic in detail. Here, however, it is important to
highlight how contemporary Chishti Sabiris claim the mantle of Islamic
orthodoxy in order to defend their tradition against its critics and detractors
in the highly contested public sphere of today’s Pakistan.
In interviews, disciples frequently expressed anxiety over what they saw as
the increasing politicization of Islam in contemporary Pakistan. They
bemoaned the growing hegemony of Islamist readings of Islamic history,
social relations, and ritual practice. After the tragedy at Pakpattan and, in par-
ticular, in the wake of the attacks of September 11, murids became increas-
ingly vocal about their frustration over exclusivist and extremist versions of
Islam. When asked to articulate their criticism of Islamist ideology, for exam-
ple, disciples generally focused on their coreligionists’ singular obsession with
outward displays of piety. The simplistic equations of “true Islam” with a
person’s style of dress, the veiling of women, and rigid, inflexible attention to
the mechanics—instead of the intention—of ritual practices, murids asserted,
only conceal a woeful ignorance of Islam’s deeper meanings. The increasing
“Talibanization” of Pakistani society outrages a senior disciple, even as his
discourse synthesizes the Chishti Sabiri counterpolemic:
The Taliban see themselves as reformers, a movement to restore past glory.

Their logic is that we must become exactly like the Sahaba [the early commu-
nity surrounding the Prophet Muhammad]. No one can be like that. The
Prophet and the Sahaba are not coming back. This is just imitation [taqlid],
nothing else—imitating them without their purification and perfection. A focus
on outward display is an easy way out for something that is simply not so easy.
The sunna of the Prophet is beyond the capacity of any Muslim. I think it is
incumbent on all Muslims to try to follow the sunna of the Prophet in all areas.
But there is a difference between imitation and sunna. The outward becomes
mere imitation. (October 1, 2001, Lahore)
I heard Chishti Sabiri disciples level a similar critique—often couched in

stories of direct personal confrontation—against a number of Pakistani
religious parties and revivalist movements. This included the Ahl-i Hadith,
Wahhabis, Jama'at-i Islami, Tablighi Jama'at, and a variety of pro-Taliban reli-
gious parties—the very groups who dismiss Sufism as an un-Islamic cultural
accretion in public discourse.30 Predictably, some of the most pointed criti-
cism fell on the contemporary Deoband—a religious educational institution
with roots in nineteenth-century India that is most often associated with the
radical and extremist doctrines of the Taliban. Not surprisingly, the legacy of
the Deoband madrasa is hotly contested by contemporary Chishti Sabiris
who view the contemporary movement as a complete betrayal of the teach-
ings of its founders, men such as Hajji Imdad Allah al-Faruqi al-Muhajir
Makki (1817–1899) and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829–1905), who were
themselves Chishti Sabiri masters.31 Disciples argue that the logic and inten-
tion of Deoband’s initial conservatism was subsequently distorted and per-
verted, leaving behind a hollow shell devoid of all Sufi spirituality. In the
words of one senior male murid, “Throughout the British period, this was
the institution [the Deoband madrasa] that preserved religion [din] in its
purest form. Now, however, there is a great misunderstanding. The
Deobandis have strayed from the path of their elders” (February 21, 2001,
Lahore).
Significantly, Chishti Sabiris also avoid association with the pro-Sufi Barelwi
movement. In the words of another senior disciple, the contemporary order
effectively steers a course between the doctrinal conservatism of the contem-
porary Deoband movement and the populism of the Barelwis: “Our shaykhs
have come from Deoband. Today we go to the Sufi shrines [mazars] like the
Barelwis, but we are neither Deobandis nor Barelwis. We simply are following
the way of our spiritual masters” (May 21, 2001, Karachi).32 In articulating
their own distinct identity, Chishti Sabiris remain wary of all political labels and
actively avoid direct involvement in any political party or movement.
Who then speaks for Islam? For Chishti Sabiri practitioners, the answer is
unambiguous: only the awliya' Allah (the “Friends of God,” the Sufi saints)
and their living heirs (the Sufi shaykhs) carry the mantle of the Prophet. In the
words of another senior male disciple,
We reject all elements of compulsion or force—if they are there, the sincerity
[khalus] is not there. There is a saying of Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi that a person
cannot proselytize da'wa without permission. Until you are explicitly given per-
mission, you are just a student, and you have no business proselytizing. So many
preachers [maulvis] give passionate speeches. People leave in tears, but people
do not change. This is because these maulvis do not have permission to speak.
The Sufi shaykhs do not say a word, but people’s lives are profoundly changed.
Only they have the express permission for da'wa. (April 24, 2001, Lahore)
As this quote suggests, Chishti Sabiris reject all simplistic attempts to reify,
synthesize, codify, and systematize Islamic piety and practice. Unlike the rep-
resentatives of the state, the religious scholars ('ulama), the preachers
attached to local mosques (maulvis), or the genealogical heirs to the Sufi
saints (sajjada nishin), they mark the Sufi master’s authority as an unrivaled
status that must be earned through self-discipline and experiential knowl-
edge. Proper spiritual guidance, therefore, is ultimately available only under
the watchful tutelage of an accomplished shaykh. To use Sufi vocabulary,
Chishti Sabiris assert that the moral reform of individuals as well as society
must be cultivated through the discipline of 'ibadat (normative ritual prac-
tice), channeled through a strict adherence to shari'a (the dictates of Divine
law), and perfected through the rigors of tariqa (the Sufi path).
Conclusion
Sufism remains a malleable and controversial signifier within the combative
discursive landscape of twenty-first-century Pakistan. In an attempt to appro-
priate the tradition’s symbolic capital, Sufi leaders are co-opted into the ide-
ology and institutions of the state as political agents and power brokers,
mediators in regionalized networks of local identity and power. At the same
time, Sufism remains deeply rooted in everyday practice. The lives of Sufi
saints are woven into local poetry and legends, and Sufi shrines such as
Pakpattan serve as vital centers of popular piety—nodal points of local iden-
tity and culture. Even so, many of the activities associated with popular
Sufism are viewed with intense ambiguity and suspicion, particularly by
Islamist groups who dismiss them as impure, un-Islamic accretions. As a
result, questioning Pakistanis about their views on Sufism may elicit any
number of responses—from reverent, extemporaneous recitations of the
poetry of a local saint to harsh invectives against the moral depravity of the
uneducated masses who flock to shrines. In today’s Pakistan, Islam itself is
argued and debated. And when it comes to Sufism, lines are drawn and sides
are chosen.
The events of the night of April 1, 2001 framed these issues in the starkest
of terms. In the wake of the disaster, the tragedy at Pakpattan was read in
diverse ways by multiple audiences. Local politicians and police attributed the
chaos, confusion, and deaths to the greed of the local shrine authorities and
the lawlessness of an unruly, uneducated mob. The heirs of Pakpattan’s holy
man, by contrast, condemned these same administrators for overturning
established crowd control policies and shirking responsibility. For the Chishti
Sabiri Sufis who traveled to the rural tomb complex in Pakpattan that night
and suffered grave losses, however, this was no mere accident. Living in a
sacralized universe, these pious Sufi devotees found a deeper meaning and,
ultimately, a transformative sense of redemption amid their grief. As heirs to
the spiritual legacy of the shrine’s holy man, they interpreted the loss of one
of their most promising young disciples—and the injuries to their own living
master and several prominent devotees—as a ritual sacrifice demanded by the
saint. In this alternative Sufi narrative, pain and suffering are transformed
into acts of atonement in which death is understood as a sign of Divine favor
and surrender to the inscrutable will of God, a marker of spiritual strength.
The 2001 Pakpattan tragedy locates the Chishti Sabiri order within
Pakistan’s contested political landscape. A deeper and more nuanced appreci-
ation of the silsila’s makeup and modus operandi requires a shift in focus,
however. Why? Because ultimately today’s Chishti Sabiris do not look to
politicians, civil society, or public institutions for answers to their religious
questions. Instead, they seek knowledge, inspiration, and guidance from the
internal resources of their own Sufi community and the collective wisdom of
its spiritual heritage. Through their piety and practices, Chishti Sabiris seek to
articulate and preserve an alternative religious identity that repositions
Sufism as the essence of Islamic orthodoxy.
The remaining chapters of the book each focus on a particular dimension
of contemporary Chishti Sabiri identity. Chapter 2 maps the construction of
Sufi sacred history and modern sainthood through an exploration of Chishti
Sabiri hagiographical texts. My analysis traces the lives of three twentieth-
century spiritual masters whose legacies serve as the touchstone for twenty-
first-century Chishti Sabiri identity: Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah
(1877–1951), Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi (1915–1978), and Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (1910–1995).
Chapter 2
Muslim, Mystic, and Modern:

T hree Twentieth-Century
Sufi Masters
In this book, the discourses (malfuzat) and selected incidents from the life of the
Sun of Sainthood, Candle of Righteousness, Lamp of the Sufi Travelers, King of
the Gnostics, our master and teacher, Hazrat Sayyid Muhammad Zauqi of the
Chishti, Sabiri, Qadiri, Naqshbandi, and Suhrawardi orders have been collected
for the guidance of the searchers for truth.
In the present time, new inventions and theories such as communism, social-
ism, capitalism, materialism, democracy and fascism have deeply afflicted the
world. At every step, it has steadily become more complicated and contorted.
Hazrat’s blessed life offers a complete lesson on how to live for every rank of
person, whether a seeker of the world or a Westernized person who has strayed
far from the path of religion. This is because as a graduate of Aligarh College he
was well acquainted with both traditional and modern learning. He was aware
of the dangers of modern culture and well versed in national and international
affairs. With his capacity as a Perfect Man (insan-i kamil), a Friend of God
(wali Allah) and a Divine gnostic, he knew the true nature of reality—the
secrets and signs of the universe.
Solutions to all problems, complications, and difficulties in human life are
found in his collective discourses, especially those problems in which there is
endless disagreement between the purveyors of the new sciences and the reli-
gious scholars ('ulama). With reference to religious principles, he perceptively
and openly discussed the veiling of women, music, photography, cinema, reli-
gion and science, religion and communism, religion and democracy, material-
ism and capitalism. He has made luminous insights into the real Islamic system,
the office of the ruler, the duties of the religious scholars, and the domestic and
foreign policies of the state, all of which light the path for the government and
common people alike.
In addition to this, the book contains a complete course in the eradication of

base qualities; the cultivation of laudable attributes; developing spiritual power;
obtaining the abilities of visions (kashf ) and saintly miracles (karamat); and
knowledge of the doctrines and paths through which a person, having annihi-
lated himself in the Prophet (fana' fi al-rasul) and in God (fana' fi Allah),
becomes absorbed in Divine attributes and achieves worthiness as His
vicegerent (khilafat). Not only novices and commoners can receive guidance
from this book. It contains rare, sublime, and novel insights relating to esoteric
Divine knowledge (ma'rifat-i ilahi) for the adepts and spiritually elect as well.1
T his glowing panegyric comes from the introduction to Tarbiyat al-

'ushshaq [“The Training of the Lovers”]. First published in 1958, this volu-
minous Urdu text is a compilation of the spiritual discourses (malfuzat) of a
major twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri master, Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi
Shah. This hagiographic account begins by duly noting the shaykh’s identity
as a Chishti Sabiri master with additional initiations in multiple Sufi orders.
Invoking this genealogy affirms Zauqi Shah’s authority and authenticity
within established lineages of piety, learning, and practice. But beyond his
impeccable spiritual credentials, the cumulative record of the shaykh’s teach-
ings is said to illuminate multiple dimensions of human existence. His life
provides guidance on all matters, we are told, from the sublime to the mun-
dane. With knowledge of science and politics to match his spiritual acumen,
the shaykh emerges as an inquisitive and eclectic scholar who immersed him-
self in the Sufi path. At the same time, he remained fully engaged with the
modern world. In essence, this revealing passage eulogizes Zauqi Shah as a
model of Islamic piety for an age corrupted by ideology, whether capitalist or
communist. Muslim, mystic, and modern, the shaykh is championed as an
exemplary model for religious scholars, politicians, Sufi adepts, and spiritual
aspirants alike.
This paradigmatic portrait of a modern Sufi master provides a useful back-
drop for an analysis of the construction of Islamic sainthood in contemporary
Pakistan. For today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples, three spiritual masters set the
standard for Sufi piety and practice. They are Muhammad Zauqi Shah
(1877–1951) and his two principal successors (khalifas): Shahidullah Faridi
(1915–1978) and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (1910–1995).2 These twentieth-
century Sufi leaders embodied the complexity and contradictions of their
times, and their lives paralleled the birth and development of Pakistan itself.
Zauqi Shah was an early graduate of Aligarh Muslim University. He went on
to pursue a career in journalism and politics before emigrating to Pakistan
and devoting himself exclusively to his spiritual duties as a Chishti Sabiri
teaching shaykh. His designated successor Shahidullah Faridi was an
Englishman from an exceedingly wealthy industrialist family in London. He
converted to Islam along with his elder brother in 1937. Together they
traveled widely throughout the Muslim world in search of spiritual knowl-
edge. Moving to Pakistan with his spiritual mentor following Partition,
Shahidullah spent the last thirty years of his life in Karachi immersed in Sufi
Muslim, Mystic, and Modern 41
practice, guiding his own devoted corps of disciples. Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani served in the British Indian Army in Malaysia during the Second
World War. He returned to Pakistan to work as a civil servant before com-
mitting himself to a life of scholarship and piety as a Chishti Sabiri teaching
shaykh.
The lives and enduring legacy of this trio of twentieth-century Chishti
Sabiri shaykhs offer a unique perspective on postcolonial subjectivity and its
relation to religious identity and expression. This chapter draws on both
hagiographical texts and ethnographic interviews to assess how these modern
Sufi exemplars are now remembered and memorialized by contemporary dis-
ciples. My analysis is informed by three fundamental assertions:
1. Sainthood blurs the boundaries between history and myth. For devotees
who live within a sacralized universe, sainthood signals a manifestation of the
sacred, affirming the living connection between humanity and divinity. For a
pious reader, the narrative structure of hagiography—or to borrow Thomas J.
Heffernan’s apt phrase, “sacred biography”—is simultaneously historical
(a story of individual sanctity) and metahistorical (an affirmation of cosmic
order).3 Since the primary goal is to edify and inspire, a hagiographer is more
interested in articulating a vision of sanctity than in documenting historical
events. As a result, the scholarly interpretation of sacred biography demands
a creative and empathetic approach that transcends the limits of positivist his-
tory or empirical biography.
2. Sainthood is simultaneously paradigmatic and protean. Hagiography is
fundamentally a didactic genre. Prophets and holy men/women establish a
blueprint for virtue against which all subsequent exemplars are measured.
The inscription of a saintly life, therefore, establishes an enduring model of
and model for moral and ethical behavior—a paradigm I refer to as the hagio-
graphical habitus.4 At the same time, no saintly paradigm can remain static,
rigid, or unyielding. While certain hagiographical motifs persist across time,
constructions of sainthood must also adapt to changing cultural settings and
localized discourses.
3. Sainthood is socially constructed. The recollection and recording of a
saintly life is more than the cumulative sum of names, dates, and events that
mark a holy person’s passage from cradle to grave. As a public marker of per-
sonal piety, sainthood is an ascribed status. It is negotiated in public discourse
before it is inscribed in sacred biographies, assimilated within institutional
structures, and narrated in story-telling networks. To a large extent, a spiri-
tual leader’s reputation depends on the response of her/his followers. If dis-
ciples fail to recognize and publicize their master’s piety, the aspiring saint is
doomed to historical anonymity. Although the negotiation of sainthood
often begins during the holy person’s lifetime, the most important phase in
establishing a saint’s reputation depends on the posthumous compilation of
a sacred biography. A written record survives. It can be memorized, repro-
duced, and disseminated to new audiences—an ever-expanding readership
that, in turn, brings its own distinct interpretations to the hagiographical
text. In the end, any claim to spiritual authority and authenticity is ultimately
socially mediated in a dynamic process of negotiation, competition, and com-
promise. It is impossible to abstract a holy person’s life and legacy from the
concrete, lived in world of the everyday. Saints, after all, are human beings,
albeit extraordinary ones. Though sainthood deals with transcendent mat-
ters, it remains firmly rooted in the mundane world of public discourse and
social practice.
Islamic Sainthood: The Sufi

“Friends of God”
Islamic sainthood engages both the inner/private (batini) and outer/public
(zahiri) dimensions of faith and practice. From its earliest stages, Sufism
developed a distinct vocabulary to distinguish between these realms of experi-
ence. In most scholarship, the Arabic terms walaya and wilaya are each trans-
lated as “sainthood.” Yet this semantic conflation veils a subtle but significant
difference. In Arabic, walaya conveys a sense of “closeness.” The saint, or
wali Allah, is therefore a “friend of God” by virtue of this intimate association.
Conversely, wilaya—alternatively translated as “manager,” “guardian,” “pro-
tector,” or “intercessor”—carries a connotation of power, patronage, and
authority.5 In short, wilaya describes a function, and walaya a state of being.
Early Sufi masters recognized this distinction, even if they sometimes dis-
agreed on the terminology. According to Shaykh Nizam ad-Din Awliya' of
Delhi (d. 1325), one of the spiritual luminaries of the Chishti order,
The saint possesses both walayat and wilayat at the same time. Walayat is that
which masters impart to disciples about God, just as they teach them about the
etiquette of the Way. Everything such as this which takes place between the
Shaykh and other people is called walayat. But that which takes place between
the Shaykh and God is called wilayat. That is a special kind of love, and when
the Shaykh leaves the world, he takes his wilayat with him. His walayat, on the
other hand, he can confer on someone else, whomever he wishes, and if he does
not confer it, then it is suitable for God Almighty to confer that walayat on
someone. But the wilayat is the Shaykh’s constant companion; he bears it with
him (wherever he goes).6
Here Nizam ad-Din reverses the definitions, equating wilaya with closeness
and love, and walaya with power and authority.
Western scholars of Sufism debate this taxonomy as well. Some such as
Michel Chodkiewicz argue that walaya most accurately conveys what we in
the West think of as sainthood.7 Yet as Vincent Cornell demonstrates, “Only
when wali Allah is used in the plural, as in the verse: ‘Verily for the awliya'
Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve’ (Qur'an 10:62), does the idea of
closeness to God come to the fore. Thus, according to Qur'anic usage, the
term wali Allah has a social as well as a metaphysical signification: the
Muslim saint protects or intercedes for others as Allah’s deputy or
vicegerent.”8 For premodern Sufi masters and contemporary academics

alike, there is no consensus on the interpretation of walaya or wilaya. In the
end, they are best understood as symbiotic concepts, “semantic fraternal
twins that coexist interdependently, like yin and yang. Each relies on the
other for its meaning.”9
Leaving this etymological debate to the grammarians, one thing is amply
clear: both in terms of language and social practice, Sufism emphasizes the
dual nature of sainthood. The wali Allah combines piety and sanctity with
power and authority. Though he lives, works, and worships in the world, the
Sufi saint is unbound from the laws of nature by virtue of his intimacy with
God. In Cornell’s words, the wali Allah is “above all else an empowered per-
son—empowered to perform miracles, empowered to communicate with
God, empowered to help the weak and oppressed, empowered to act on
behalf of others, empowered to mediate the course of destiny, and empow-
ered to affect the behavior of other holders of power.”10 This power contin-
ues even after the saint’s physical death. For the faithful who flock to Sufi
shrines on pilgrimage, the wali Allah represents a tangible and renewable
source of blessing.
Sacred biography plays an essential role in cementing a Sufi master’s
posthumous reputation as a “Friend of God.” Sufi hagiographers employ a
distinct stockpile of tropes and spiritual heroes. Drawing on eyewitness
accounts, historical precedents, doctrinal evidence, and a rhetorical flair they
construct a story of sanctity. As Bruce Lawrence argues, Sufi biographies “are
not random life stories designed to impress or elicit awe. They are construc-
tions of a tradition of piety, the evidence of believers transmitted by other
believers for the purpose of gaining still further believers.”11 Sufi biographers
are especially careful to integrate their subjects into a broader historical nar-
rative that links each Sufi master with an established chain (silsila) of sacred
authority that extends backward in time to the Prophet Muhammad himself.
As the living embodiment of tradition, “each major saint becomes a crucial,
indispensable link extending the spiritual charisma—and hence the institu-
tional longevity—of his order (tariqa). Inevitably the shaykh as shaykh
reshapes the way in which his followers think about all antecedent—and also
all subsequent—saints.”12 A Sufi family tree is based not on blood but on an
intimate—and intuitive—knowledge and experience of the Sufi path.
For all Muslims everywhere, the supreme prototype of human perfection
is the Prophet Muhammad. He is revered as the final messenger of Divine
revelation; his roles as legislator, political leader, husband and father, and
spiritual guide mark the standard for a socially engaged spiritual life.13 In
both spiritual and worldly matters, the Prophet is the “beautiful model”
(uswa hasana; Qur'an 33:21). His words, actions and exemplary conduct
(sunna) are recorded in hadith (the reports or traditions about the Prophet,
transmitted by his Companions), eulogized in poetry, folktales, legends and
songs, and evoked in daily worship. For the global umma—diverse in culture
and divided by language, custom, ethnicity, class, nationality, and geogra-
phy—the Prophet serves as a potent and enduring symbol of unity.
Sufis view the Prophet Muhammad as the paradigmatic shaykh, the

supreme spiritual master, and the first and essential link in any chain of spiri-
tual authority. In an intriguing passage from his spiritual discourses, Shaykh
Muhammad Zauqi Shah outlines the relationship between sainthood and
prophecy:
The rank of sainthood [walayat] is higher than prophecy [nubuwwat].

Sainthood is the name of a personal relationship with God, and prophecy is an
office for the guidance of people. It is a mistake, however, to say that a saint
[wali] is superior to a prophet [nabi]. Every prophet, in addition to holding the
office of prophecy, is also a saint. For this reason, the prophet’s rank is greater
than that of the saint. It is like a king who has two friends. If one of them is
appointed viceroy of an area then his status is higher than the one who is merely
a friend. The viceroy is both a deputy and a friend.14
In the eyes of many Muslims, this is a controversial claim. Some would

even find it blasphemous. Sufis, however, assert that the wali Allah’s close-
ness to God is matched by an intimacy with the Prophet. The central impor-
tance of the Prophet in Sufi thought and practice is beyond question. To aid
them in their spiritual quest, Sufi adepts draw particular inspiration from the
story of the Prophet’s Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem (isra) and his
Ascension to heaven (mi'raj).15 Dreams and visions of the Prophet serve as
key markers of spiritual progress along the path. And most importantly, the
Prophet’s day-to-day activities define the benchmark of correct, moral behav-
ior (adab), which every devotee seeks to emulate. For Sufis everywhere the
Prophet is the indispensable tour guide on the spiritual journey to God. At
the same time, however, models of Sufi sainthood are neither synchronically
nor diachronically uniform. Emerging from local contexts, Sufi sacred biog-
raphies mirror the remarkable cultural variety of the global Muslim world.
The Chishti Sufi Master: Past and Present

Having collected everything which I heard from that candle of the angelic
assembly [the Chishti Shaykh Nizam ad-Din Awliya' of Delhi, d. 1233–1325],
I have written down the distillation of his blessed discourse and what it
means—at least to the extent that I understood it. Since the heart of the spiri-
tually aroused will benefit from it, I have named this work Morals for the Heart
(Fawa'id al-Fu'ad). God alone is our helper, on Him do we rely.16
With these words, Amir Hasan Sijzi—poet by day and spiritual seeker by
night—established a new genre of Sufi sacred biography that profoundly
reshaped the construction of Islamic sainthood in South Asia. In time, the
Chishtiyya “produced a broader and more sustained literary tradition than
any other Indian Sufi order.”17 And, in no small way, it was the singular
impact of Hasan Sijzi’s foundational malfuzat text that opened the flood-
gates. This unique work records the teachings of Shaykh Nizam ad-Din
Awliya' on a wide range of topics over a fifteen-year period, from 1307 to
1322. With its eclectic and informal style, the text brought the saint’s
personality to vivid, three-dimensional life for an audience well beyond
his inner circle of devotees. As historian K.A. Nizami notes, “With Fawa'id
al-Fu'ad, Sufi literature entered a new phase and assumed a more lively, real-
istic, and concrete form related to actual circumstances. It made Sufi teach-
ings accessible to a broad audience of Indian Muslims.”18 The continued
popularity and influence of Sijzi’s account through the centuries did much to
secure Nizam ad-Din’s enduring reputation as one of the spiritual giants of
the Chishti order. On a broader level, it also enshrined a portrait of Islamic
sainthood that remains the hagiographical habitus for the Chishti order up
until the present day.
What exactly are the defining characteristics of the premodern Sufi saint
that emerge from Indo-Muslim sacred biographies? In order to be acknowl-
edged as a great shaykh during his lifetime and a wali Allah for posterity, a
Chishti Sufi master had to possess several salient—and often paradoxical—
qualities. In a survey of the scholarship of South Asian Sufism, Bruce
Lawrence offers the following profile of the premodern Indo-Muslim Sufi
shaykh:
1. Well born into an established Muslim family, the saint must yet be
motivated to seek a Sufi master in order to improve the quality of his
Islamic faith.
2. Well educated in Qur'an, hadith, theology, and also Sufi literature as well
as Persian poetry, he must yet be able to intuit the deepest truths behind,
and often beyond, the written word.
3. Initiated by a shaykh (usually after an epiphanic moment) and acknowl-
edging his shaykh as the sole vehicle of Divine grace for him, he must yet
strive to attain his own level of spiritual excellence, often through severe
fasting and prolonged meditation.
4. Living in isolation from the company of others, he must yet constantly
attend to the needs of his fellow Muslims, or at least to those needs evi-
denced by his disciples and visitors to his hospice [khanaqah]. (He is sel-
dom expected to concern himself with non-Muslims).
5. Married and the father of sons, he must yet be celibate in temperament
and disposition.
6. Capable of performing miracles [karamat, “saintly graces”], he must yet
be careful to suppress them on most occasions.
7. Prone to ecstasy, whether in silent solitude or abetted by music and verse
while in the company of other Sufis [sama'], he must yet be able to recall
and to perform his obligatory duties as a Muslim.
8. Poor and unmindful of worldly possessions, he must yet be receptive to
large donations of money and be able to dispense them quickly for the
benefit of those in need.
9. Avoiding the company of worldly people, merchants, soldiers and gov-
ernment officials, including kings, he must yet live in proximity to them
(i.e., near a city) and stay in touch with them through his lay disciples.19
In the following pages, I demonstrate how this typology of the premod-

ern Indo-Muslim Sufi master continues to inform the contemporary con-
struction of Chishti Sabiri sainthood. While tracing the continuity of
tradition, I also mark how South Asian Sufism has accommodated to the
momentous changes of the colonial and postcolonial eras. My survey is by
no means an exhaustive, year-by-year recounting of the lives of Muhammad
Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani.20 Here I
am less concerned with compiling historical “facts” than in measuring how
the legacies of these modern Sufi exemplars are remembered and re-pre-
sented in hagiographical narratives. Communicated in texts and oral histo-
ries, the story of this trio of Chishti Sabiri masters is firmly grounded in the
context of twentieth-century South Asian history. Yet what is immediately
striking is how closely the sacred biographies of these modern masters
adhere to the premodern model of Indo-Muslim sainthood. I argue that
Sufi masters—both past and present—are revered as the physicians of
human souls, the agents of the miraculous, and the heirs to Prophet
Muhammad. As mortal men, however, they remain fully immersed in the
social, cultural, and political life of their times. In the cultural contexts of
South Asia, Sufi sainthood continues to engage both din (religion) and
dunya (the world).
Shaykh Sayyid Muhammad

Zauqi Shah (1877–1951)
The life of Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah stretched from the twilight of
British colonial rule to Pakistan’s formative period in the wake of political
independence. The shaykh passed away during the Hajj pilgrimage in
September 1951 and lies buried in an unmarked grave on the plain of 'Arafat.
Many of his disciples are also now deceased, and those still alive were quite
young when he died. As a result, recollections of Zauqi Shah are based largely
on a combination of inherited stories and, more importantly, references to
the hagiographical accounts of his life and teachings. The contemporary
silsila’s collective memory, in other words, is maintained through an interde-
pendent nexus of oral narratives and written texts.
The following survey is based primarily on the two principal sacred biog-
raphies that document Zauqi Shah’s long life. Both were written in Urdu in
the late 1950s and are now published in Pakistan by the contemporary
Chishti Sabiri order. Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq [“The Training of the Lovers”], is
the order’s most important malfuzat. A weighty compilation of Zauqi Shah’s
spiritual teachings, it comprises four separate works:
1. Muqaddama [“Introduction”]: a lengthy and detailed introduction to

Zauqi shah’s legacy written by Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani.21
2. Sirat-i Zauqi [“The Path of Zauqi”]: a brief biography based largely
on the shaykh’s diaries composed by a disciple named Sayyid Sharif
al-Hasan.22
3. Malfuzat [“Spiritual Discourses”]: compiled by Shahidullah Faridi and

detailing a series of Zauqi Shah’s lectures delivered to disciples between
1942 and 1950.23
4. Malfuzat [“Spiritual Discourses”]: compiled by Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani
and covering the period from 1940 to 1951.24
A separate account, Hajj-i Zauqi [“Zauqi’s Hajj Pilgrimage”] also written by

Wahid Bakhsh, complements and completes this quartet with a detailed
account of Zauqi Shah’s final Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 1951.25 Together,
these sacred biographies constitute a distinctively twentieth-century portrait
of Indo-Muslim sainthood while still preserving the essential markings of the
premodern paradigm.
Zauqi Shah is an intriguing and complicated figure. In many ways, he
stands at a historical crossroads. Though steeped in Sufi tradition and deeply
indebted to his Chishti Sabiri predecessors, his personal experiences and
worldview were profoundly colored by twentieth-century, postcolonial South
Asian history. Zauqi Shah’s spiritual teachings and political activism reflect an
attempt to bridge these two worlds. He was acutely aware of the challenges
posed by science, nationalism, secularization, and Western cultural and polit-
ical hegemony. For him, the fundamental question was how to make Sufism
relevant for a new age. Zauqi Shah’s biographers detail the experiences of this
complex spiritual master for a contemporary Pakistani (and international)
audience. For the current generation of Chishti Sabiri disciples, distanced
from Zauqi Shah’s life but keenly aware of his enduring legacy, these hagio-
graphical texts remain a vital source of information and guidance.
Family Background and Spiritual Initiation

Zauqi Shah was a descendent of a prominent sayyid family. Sirat-i Zauqi
traces his family genealogy back thirty-six generations directly to the
Prophet Muhammad. The family’s patriarch, Sayyid Jalal Gul Surkh, emi-
grated to India from Bukhara, residing for some time in the hospice
(khanaqah) of the well-known Suhrawardi saint of Uch Sharif, Baha ad-Din
Zakaria. A close affiliation with the Suhrawardi order was a hallmark of the
family through the generations. The most important link in this chain was
Gul Surkh’s grandson, the famous fourteenth-century Suhrawardi master of
Multan, Sayyid Jalal ad-Din Bukhari Makhdum-i Jahaniyan. According to
Sirat-i Zauqi, Jalal ad-Din “completed his training under Shaykh Rukn ad-
Din Abul Fatah Suhrawardi and Nasir ad-Din Chirag-i Delhi. Thus both the
Suhrawardi and Chishti systems were followed in the family.”26 In an
intriguing lecture, Zauqi Shah reveals to his disciples that his family’s lineage
was confirmed for him in a vision of the Prophet himself.27 Today’s disciples
highlight this genealogy as an auspicious marker of Zauqi Shah’s own spiri-
tual status and authority. Though he would eventually make a name for him-
self as a Chishti Sabiri master, Zauqi Shah’s family tree further cements his
posthumous status and reputation.
Zauqi Shah’s father, Sayyid Abu Muhammad Jamal ad-Din (d. 1914), was
born in 1850 in Farrukhabad. He is remembered as a strict follower of
shari'a and a member of the revivalist movement, Ahl-i Hadith. He studied
traditional medicine (tibb) and was appointed as a physician in the colonial
administration, receiving a pension when he retired from service in 1898. He
was transferred to various places, including the town of Khori (Sagar District)
where Zauqi Shah—born Sayyid Muhammad Ibrahim—was born on
September 15, 1877.28
While his hagiographers reveal very little about Zauqi Shah’s early child-
hood, they do record a transformative experience from his youth. In April
1888 at the age of ten, he accompanied his family on his first Hajj. In the holy
city of Mecca he had the opportunity to meet the famous Sufi master Hajji
Imdad Allah al-Faruqi al-Muhajir Makki (1817–1899) who “placed his hand
on his head and prayed for him.”29 The shaykh’s biographers highlight this as
highly significant and propitious encounter. Hajji Imdad Allah was a promi-
nent nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri master. A reformist, social critic, and
political activist, the shaykh supported the 1857 uprising against the British
and subsequently fled to Mecca. Living in exile, he became the spiritual men-
tor for a dynamic group of young Muslim scholars who went on to establish
the Deoband madrasa after the British sacked Delhi in 1857. Hajji Imdad
Allah is a prominent figure throughout Zauqi Shah’s discourses. He is char-
acterized as an advanced spiritual master and political leader known for his
activist social ethics and close relationship with the Prophet. Zauqi Shah
clearly maintained a deep affinity for Hajji Imdad Allah throughout his long
life. His hagiographers stress that he remained in direct spiritual contact with
the saint throughout his life via dreams and visions. In short, Zauqi Shah is
positioned as the twentieth-century equivalent of his nineteenth-century
predecessor. Yet despite these deep personal links, Zauqi Shah came to reject
the scripturalist reformism of the later Deoband movement. In its critique of
Sufi piety and practices, he argued, the Deobandis had betrayed Hajji Imdad
Allah’s true legacy.
In the hagiographical account of Zauqi Shah’s life, this early meeting
with Hajji Imdad Allah clearly signals an initiation on the Sufi path. It also
foreshadows his future as a Chishti Sabiri spiritual master. Zauqi Shah’s full
immersion in Sufi practice, however, was delayed until much later in life
after an active career in journalism, business, and politics. According to his
biographers, his life took a dramatic turn in 1913 when he traveled to the
shrine of Mu'in ad-Din Chishti in Ajmer in search of spiritual guidance.
There he prayed for guidance and was rewarded with a vivid dream of a
mysterious Sufi master. Inspired by this vision, Zauqi Shah resolved to leave
his worldly life behind and traveled to various places in search of this
unknown spiritual guide—a common trope in Sufi hagiographical litera-
ture. Eventually he made his way to Lucknow where he was introduced by
his brother-in-law to the Chishti Sabiri shaykh Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan.
Zauqi Shah immediately recognized him as the Sufi master from his dream.
He immediately took bay'at (the ceremony of formal initiation) in

Lucknow on February 14, 1914 at the relatively advanced age of thirty-
six.30 It was Shaykh Waris Hasan who guided Zauqi Shah along the Sufi
path. In true Chishti fashion, Zauqi Shah fastidiously recorded his master’s
discourses. This Urdu compilation is now published by the Chishti Sabiri
silsila in Pakistan under the title Shamamat al-'Ambar. A partial English
translation by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani entitled A Guide for Spiritual
Aspirants has recently been published by Chishti Sabiri disciples in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia as well.
Education
Zauqi Shah’s early education was thoroughly traditional. As a young boy
he attended a local school in Khori while studying the Qur'an and Arabic
at home with his father. His education took a marked turn, however, during
adolescence. From 1893 to 1896, Zauqi Shah enrolled at the bastion of
nineteenth-century Indo-Muslim modernism: Muhammadan Anglo-
Oriental College at Aligarh (subsequently renamed Aligarh Muslim
University). Graduating from the famous academy founded by Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) likely made Zauqi Shah the first Chishti master to
be educated in a modern university.31 This distinction marks a major devia-
tion from the premodern paradigm of Indo-Muslim sainthood. It signals a
clear break from established tradition and a major accommodation to the
changing landscape of twentieth-century South Asia.
Unlike many of his Sufi predecessors and contemporary 'ulama counter-
parts, Zauqi Shah received no formal madrasa training in Qur'an inter-
pretation (tafsir), hadith, theology (kalam), or the intricacies of legal
interpretation (usul ul-fiqh). His formal education did provide him access to
alternative networks of social patronage and new mediums of knowledge,
however. Zauqi Shah’s proficiency in English, for instance, facilitated a career
as a journalist and political activist. As a Sufi master, it spurred his interest in
and interaction with numerous foreign associates and disciples as well.
Throughout his long life Zauqi Shah displayed an abiding interest in Western
thought and, in particular, science. His discourses abound with references to
the wonders—and limits—of scientific knowledge and technological discov-
ery. In numerous passages, he praises Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which,
he asserts, parallels but does not equal the essential teachings of Sufism
regarding space and time.32 To say the least, Zauqi Shah’s intellectual inter-
ests were broad and deep.
A love for learning and an enduring obsession with writing are among the
hallmarks of Zauqi Shah’s legacy. He was a voracious reader of newspapers,
books, and periodicals and clearly benefited from the rapid spread of print
technology. Zauqi Shah is said to have been especially fond of poetry. In fact,
he used many of his favorite Persian verses to adorn his own mystical Urdu
novel Bada u saghir [“The Wine and the Cup”]. In the introduction to
Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani comments on his mentor’s bib-

liophilism and active literary life:
There were all kinds of books in his personal library, including various books
concerned with scientific knowledge. All of them were well maintained. Each
book was wrapped with a paper cover, on which the title had been written with
great care. It was his habit that if a particular book did not have an index, he
would prepare one himself . . . He preserved copies of all the letters he wrote to
Qaid-i Azam [Muhammad Ali Jinnah], Pickthall [English convert and famous
Qur'an translator], Habib Allah Lovegrove [an English convert], and other
important personages. He always used to write in a diary in which he recorded
the important events of the day . . . From all this it is apparent how regulated
and disciplined Hazrat’s daily life was. He used to say, “If a person’s world is
not in order, how can his religion be sound?”33
As a professional journalist, and later as a Chishti Sabiri teaching shaykh,

Zauqi Shah’s own literary production was voluminous. Besides his spiritual
novel, he also wrote and published an encyclopedic lexicon of Sufi terminol-
ogy entitled Sirr-i dilbaran, as well as numerous articles, essays, and pam-
phlets in both Urdu and English.34 With his eclectic background, Zauqi Shah
was convinced that Sufism had to be personally experienced and publicly
articulated. The sheer scope and scale of his literary corpus is testament to the
range of his energy and interests. Zauqi Shah’s love of books is evidenced in
his expansive personal library preserved in a house near the shrine of
Shahidullah Faridi in Karachi. The library contains a large collection of
Arabic, Urdu, and Persian texts on tafsir (Qur'an interpretation) and fiqh
(Islamic law), along with a broad selection of Sufi poetry and biographical
works. Catalogued and well maintained, the shaykh’s personal collection is
accessible to Chishti Sabiri disciples.
Spiritual Training
Zauqi Shah’s own spiritual training at the hands of his Sufi teacher, Shah
Sayyid Waris Hasan, was firmly in keeping with the long-standing practices of
the Chishti order. This included a strict adherence to the dictates of the
shari'a, supplemented by a demanding daily regimen of extra spiritual exer-
cises (mujahada), including supererogatory prayers, meditative zikr (the
“remembrance” of God), contemplation (muraqaba), and fasting. Tarbiyat
al-'ushshaq records a revealing memory of his early spiritual training:
Sometimes my Maulana Sahab [Shaykh Waris Hasan], may God have mercy on
him, prescribed a spiritual exercise [mujahada] that initially seemed very diffi-
cult. But actually it was quite simple. For example, once during Ramadan I was
extremely thirsty in the evening . . . That day I had undertaken a special exer-
cise that had caused my body to heat up. Maulana Sahab then told me, “Zauqi,
keep the fast today.” I was suffering greatly, but it is imperative to carry out the
shaykh’s wishes. I firmly resolved that I would force myself not to break my fast.
When it was time to break the fast, Maulana Sahab said, “Come, Zauqi. Take
some breakfast.” In this way I received mental exercises which appeared very
difficult. Yet I only had to battle with my lower self [nafs] for a short while and
in the end I enjoyed a great reward.35
Even after completing his formal Sufi training under the tutelage of Shah
Sayyid Waris Hasan, Zauqi Shah is said to have maintained a regimented spir-
itual discipline. He constantly pushed his physical and mental boundaries in
the pursuit of further spiritual growth. His biographers recollect Zauqi Shah
praying alone under the blazing heat of the summer sun or, amusingly, with
a radio on full volume as a test of his powers of concentration. This emphasis
on the shaykh’s asceticism and unrelenting self-discipline is echoed in the
account of his final days during Hajj in 1951. While others retired to their
beds, exhausted by the heat and the day’s trials, Zauqi Shah continued his
spiritual rigors: “Hazrat’s [Zauqi Shah’s]—may God have mercy upon him—
courage and persistence was miraculous. He had endured rigorous spiritual
exercises without interruption from the time of afternoon prayer ['asr], and
even after we went to sleep, he remained sitting in the chair. The next morn-
ing when we awoke for the morning prayers, Hazrat, may God have mercy
upon him, was still seated in the chair, deep in meditation [muraqaba].”36
Zauqi Shah’s training in the Sufi path tested the limits of his mental and
physical endurance. His sacred biographies emphasize that the shaykh’s spiri-
tual knowledge and insight were acquired through immense sacrifice and
unwavering discipline. According to Sirat-i Zauqi, “Hazrat Shah Sahab, may
God have mercy on him, was a dervish in the truest sense. He had neither
inherited it as a sajjada nishin, nor was it founded on an empty display of
spirituality. He personally endured all the hardships that are part of being a
dervish. In the beginning he did exceedingly difficult spiritual exercises. For
almost five full years, he lived in jungles, enduring hunger and thirst while
engaging in constant worship.”37 The denigration of hereditary Sufi leaders
(sajjada nishin) in this passage is particularly telling. It suggests that they may
not have any particular spiritual accomplishments to match their auspicious
family lineage. By contrast, the hagiographer asserts that Zauqi Shah earned
his lofty spiritual status through personal effort and raw determination. Each
of the shaykh’s discourses, in fact, recount a range of experiences meant to
demonstrate his advanced level of intuitive, experiential, esoteric knowledge
(ma'rifa).
Of particular interest are the accounts of Zauqi Shah’s frequent visionary
experiences and Uwaysi-style mystical connections. For example, his dis-
courses record an early encounter with the immortal prophet Khizr along
with frequent visions of the Prophet Muhammad.38 There are also numerous
descriptions of spiritual encounters with a host of premodern Chishti lumi-
naries. For example, Zauqi Shah narrates a lengthy and detailed dream in
which he meets Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din Chishti who appears as a handsome
and richly dressed youth of seventeen. Together they travel instantaneously
from Ajmer to Multan where the Khwaja helps a sick friend of Zauqi Shah’s
who lacks the money to return to Delhi. According to Zauqi Shah, his friend
subsequently verified that he had been miraculously cured and woke to find
a stash of money under his pillow.39 A parallel narrative records that Zauqi
Shah also received news of his status as the successor (khalifa) to Waris Hasan
Shah directly from Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din Chishti in a dream during pilgrim-
age to the saint’s shrine in Ajmer in 1914.40 In yet another anecdote Zauqi
Shah accompanies his own shaykh on a visit to the mazar of Nizam ad-Din
Awliya' in Delhi. There they encounter a Punjabi mendicant (majhzub) who
asks Zauqi Shah for money. Later, Waris Hasan Shah tells him that the
majhzub was none other than Nizam ad-Din himself in disguise.41 And on a
subsequent pilgrimage to the shrine at Kalyar Sharif, Zauqi Shah experiences
a vision of 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad Sabir—the eponymous founder of the
Chishti Sabiri order—who gives him a lengthy discourse on the spiritual qual-
ities and benefits of listening to music (sama').42 The sheer abundance of
these encounters is clearly meant to signal Zauqi Shah’s acceptance into the
Chishti pantheon.
Hagiographic accounts of other transformative dreams highlight Zauqi
Shah’s connection to prominent nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri masters as
well. In a remarkable passage, the shaykh narrates a vivid dream he experi-
enced on October 24, 1927 during a prolonged period of fasting. In the
dream, he meets Hajji Imdad Allah—the famous Chishti Sabiri master and
Deoband leader—who teaches him a mystical breathing exercise that allows
him to merge into the Divine essence (dhat). Afterward, the two of them visit
the shrine of the Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) where they are joined by Zauqi’s
Shah’s master. According to the text, when Waris Hasan Shah visited Bombay
several days later and was told about this vision, he immediately announced
that it was an indication that Zauqi Shah had been granted wilayat-i Yusufi
(the station of the “authority of the Prophet Joseph”).43 During an extended
retreat at Ajmer Sharif where he was immersed in spiritual exercises (muja-
hadat), Zauqi Shah had another vivid, life-altering dream. In this vision,
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi—the other major Deoband founder and nineteenth-
century Chishti Sabiri shaykh—appears as a young man dressed in royal garb.
The saint questions Zauqi Shah, and then announces that he is ready to teach
disciples of his own. When Zauqi Shah recounts this dream to his own shaykh,
he is immediately granted permission to initiate his own disciples in the name
of Waris Hasan Shah (wilayat-i niyabati).44 For an audience steeped in Sufi
sacred biographies, these dreams serve as vital markers—direct and unam-
biguous signs of spiritual power and accomplishment. Zauqi Shah emerges
from these accounts as a pious, disciplined, and highly accomplished Sufi
spiritual master: the twentieth-century reflection of his nineteenth-century
Chishti Sabiri predecessors.
Qualities as a Teaching Shaykh

Throughout his adult life, Zauqi Shah led a peripatetic life, traveling fre-
quently between Agra, Jaipur, Bombay, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Ajmer, and,
finally, Karachi. Somewhat paradoxically, he was also known to retreat from

social life for prolonged periods of isolation, especially in the early years of his
spiritual training. His malfuzat recounts two forty-day spiritual retreats
(chilla) in particular, one in Delhi at the mazar of Nizam ad-Din Awliya' and
another in Kalyar Sharif.45 The vast majority of the shaykh’s time and energy,
however, was spent attending to the needs of his disciples. Time and again his
biographers emphasize that Zauqi Shah was, first and foremost, a spiritual
mentor. He is characterized as the embodiment of shari'a and the paragon of
decorum (adab). Unlike his Chishti ancestors, Zauqi Shah never lived in a
traditional khanaqah—the premodern Sufi hospice where disciples and visi-
tors either lived or visited for spiritual guidance. Instead, he met privately
with disciples in his modest home in Karachi or traveled to meet them in per-
son. Under his leadership the silsila’s collective gatherings were limited to
weekly zikr sessions (also in the Zauqi Shah’s home), along with the annual
pilgrimages to local shrines for the death anniversaries ('urs) of prominent
Sufi saints.
Zauqi Shah’s attitude toward outsiders represents another important
break from the traditional paradigm of Chishti leadership. In his sacred biog-
raphies, the shaykh appears remarkably open and accessible to murids and
non-murids, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. According to Sirat-i Zauqi:
Hazrat Shah Sahab’s—may God have mercy upon him—circle of followers

included people from every religion and social class. There were no restrictions
against Muslims, Hindus, Parsis, or Christians. His discussions always struck
the heart, and whoever heard him became persuaded. He never insisted that
Muslims had to be strict in following shari'a in the beginning, nor did he
demand that non-Muslims convert. He often said that his only function was to
encourage people to remember God. He used to say, “Our work is to bring
people to the remembrance of God. This remembrance will itself bring them to
the straight path.”46
This account portrays Zauqi Shah as a wise and generous teacher who con-
vinces others through the force of his personality and the power of personal
example. The frequency of such cross-creedal encounters in his hagiographies
is best understood against the backdrop of the late colonial period. Faced
with the confrontational politics of religious communalism, Zauqi Shah
became a public apologist for Sufism.47 Within the charged polemical atmos-
phere surrounding Partition, he actively defended Sufi piety and practice
from its detractors, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
While he recognized the integrity of other monotheistic religions, Zauqi
Shah aggressively championed the superiority of Islam as the final revelation
and Sufism as the most highly developed spiritual path. This is illustrated in a
number of edifying interactions with both Christians and Hindus. In certain
lectures the shaykh describes non-Muslim spiritual luminaries—Krishna,
Rama, Sita, Lachman, and Guru Nanak—as believers in the one true
God and religious leaders with “Divine connection” (nisbat).48 In practice,
however, he openly encouraged the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam and
frequently accepted foreigners as disciples. Among them were Dr. Abdul

Aziz—a Hindu convert—as well as Habib Allah Lovegrove and Fazl al-Haq
Berkley, both Christian converts from England.49 Zauqi Shah communicated
with foreigners outside the boundaries of the silsila as well. A particularly fas-
cinating exchange is found in a lively correspondence with Mohammed
Marmaduke Pickthall (1875–1936), the famous British convert and Qur'an
translator. In a series of letters written in 1932, Zauqi Shah critiques
Pickthall’s ecumenicism, insisting that salvation demands belief in Islam and
the Prophet Muhammad as the final messenger.50 On the whole, Zauqi Shah
emerges from these hagiographical accounts as a learned, tolerant, and tire-
less teacher. At the same time, he is portrayed as a firm advocate of Islamic
orthodoxy and a staunch defender of Sufi doctrine and ritual practices.
Married Life
Although select Chishti luminaries such as Nizam ad-Din Awliya' and 'Ali
Ahmad Sabir remained bachelors for life, Zauqi Shah followed the precedent
of the Prophet Muhammad in the conduct of his own personal life. The
shaykh first married in April 1896 at the age of nineteen and soon after
became a father with the birth of his first daughter. Following the sudden
death of his wife in 1911, Zauqi Shah was extremely reluctant to remarry,
preferring instead to remain single and celibate to focus on his spiritual life.
His shaykh, Waris Hasan, firmly rejected this idea, however, exclaiming, “We
are following the way of Muhammad, and not of Isa (Jesus).”51
In deference to his master’s wishes, Zauqi Shah married the widowed
daughter of a local landowner (jagirdar) of Fatehgar in September 1918.
Together they too had a daughter named Rashida Khatun. In a lecture to his
own disciples many years later, Zauqi Shah echoed the words of his shaykh,
drawing a line between the Christian and Muslim spiritual life to stress the
importance of the institution of marriage. In his words,
The path of Muhammad [suluk-i Muhammad], God bless him and grant him
salvation, demands spiritual striving [mujahada] from everyone, and this is
exceedingly difficult work. The path of Jesus [suluk-i Isa] is easy. Hazrat Isa,
peace be upon him, had neither a house nor a wife and children. He would sit
and lie down under any tree he came across. He owned nothing. He used to
drink water from the palm of his hand. In his ragged garments [khirqa] he car-
ried only a needle and some thread, and on reaching the Fourth Heaven he said
that even those worldly things were useless. But our Holy Messenger, God bless
him and grant him salvation, went up to the throne of God with his shoes on.52
Zauqi Shah’s youngest daughter was eventually married to his principal khal-
ifa, the Englishman Shahidullah Faridi. On that occasion, he again com-
mented on the paradoxical nature of marriage, telling his disciples, “People
call marriage happiness [shadi], but in my opinion it is really a misfortune
[musibat]. With marriage, one’s freedom comes to an end. This isn’t happi-
ness, it’s an occasion for mourning.”53 Though hardly an encouraging
endorsement for his son-in-law’s marital future, Zauqi Shah clearly viewed
marriage as a religious duty—a fitting test of character and faith for a Sufi
spiritual seeker obliged to live in the world.
Miracles
Sufis distinguish between the confirmatory miracles of the Prophet
Muhammad (mu'jizat), and the occasional, nonconfirmatory feats per-
formed by saints (karamat).54 In Fawa'id al-Fu'ad, Shaykh Nizam ad-Din
Awliya' cautions against any public display of control over the forces of
nature. In his view, miracles are merely a distraction on the spiritual path:
“God Almighty has commanded His Saints to conceal their miracles (kara-
mat), just as He has commanded His prophets to demonstrate theirs
(mu'jizat). Since anyone who performs a miracle is disobeying God, what
sort of work is this? There are one hundred stages on the spiritual path. The
seventeenth stage provides divine inspiration to perform miraculous acts.
Now, if the traveler stops at this stage, how will he reach the other eighty-
three?”55 Echoing his premodern Chishti ancestor, Zauqi Shah dismissed
miracles as child’s play. “The real purpose is to keep busy in God’s work,” the
shaykh reminds his disciples in one recorded lecture. “Unveilings [kashf ] and
saintly miracles [karamat] are insignificant matters.”56 While acknowledging
the reality of the miraculous, Zauqi Shah’s biographers stress that the shaykh
was extremely reluctant to demonstrate his own powers. This is evident, for
instance, in an anecdote from his final Hajj journey. Amid the chaos and con-
fusion of the pilgrimage, Zauqi Shah’s followers come to him to express their
concern over the delayed arrival of several prominent murids. In response,
Zauqi Shah encourages patience, saying, “If I so desired, I could find out
through inspiration, but it is against the etiquette [adab] of this place to dis-
play inspiration and saintly miracles. Whatever I learn from ‘official channels’
[in English], through outward means, will be sufficient.”57
Despite this reticence, Zauqi Shah’s sacred biographies do document
numerous occasions when the shaykh’s spiritual powers were unveiled. Sirat-i
Zauqi, for example, records a brief but revealing encounter between Zauqi
Shah and the Chief Minister of Hyderabad Maharaja Krishna Prashad.
Meeting for the first time, the shaykh immediately asks the politician why he
has abandoned a particular meditation exercise. Duly impressed, the prime
minister promises to return to the practice.58 Another intriguing story
describes an occasion when Zauqi Shah traveled to the ashram of Mahatma
Gandhi. Finding the Hindu leader absent, the shaykh takes the opportunity to
assist a young Hindu woman who complains of difficulty concentrating dur-
ing meditation. When Zauqi Shah’s advice to her pays immediate dividends,
the young woman tells him, “[Y]ou are a very spiritual man and I will cer-
tainly tell Mr. Gandhi about you.”59 For a Sufi audience, this anecdote obvi-
ously serves a dual purpose. It highlights Zauqi Shah’s powers of observation
and concentration while simultaneously implying that his spiritual powers
eclipse those of his famous Hindu counterpart.
Other hagiographical stories document miracles of healing. In one

incident, a young boy with a severe mental illness is brought before Zauqi
Shah. Although all previous efforts to find a medical explanation have been
fruitless, the shaykh immediately perceives the cause of his ailment and sets
about curing him:
As soon as he saw the boy he perceived that he had been so overwhelmed by

excessive illuminations from continuous acts of worship that his heart was not
able to withstand it. As a result, his mind had gone bad. He told the boy to
return the next day before breakfast. That night, Hazrat Shah Sahab, may God
have mercy upon him, ate a heavy meal and, after the morning prayers, gath-
ered within his heart all kinds of base thoughts. When the boy arrived, he trans-
ferred the effects of the food and the filth of those base thoughts into the boy’s
heart through concentration. From that day onward the boy’s mind and senses
began to improve, and within a few days the condition of his mind was com-
pletely sound. Hazrat Shah Sahab mentioned this cure to his own shaykh who
was quite pleased and said, “You have done the right thing. A dervish ought to
exercise this kind of independent reasoning [ijtihad]!”60
In a personal interview, one of Zauqi Shah’s oldest and most revered disciples
related a similar incident. As a child, this man suffered from tuberculosis of
the spine. When the treatments prescribed by his medical doctors failed, he
was taken to Zauqi Shah who cured his condition by breathing into his open
mouth (May 21, 2001, Karachi).
Hajj-i Zauqi records Zauqi Shah’s final and most dramatic miraculous
display, however. According to Wahid Bakhsh’s emotional narrative, when
Zauqi Shah unexpectedly expired during the waning days of the pilgrimage,
he left his murids with a powerful sign: “The strangest thing of all was that
his heart continued beating. In order to confirm this we called a Pakistani
doctor. He too opened Hazrat’s blessed eyes and examined them, felt his
pulse and then exclaimed, ‘There is no doubt that he has passed away [wisal],
but amazingly his heart continues to beat as before!’”61 For a Sufi audience,
all of these extraordinary displays of knowledge, insight, and control over the
forces of nature signify Zauqi Shah’s lofty spiritual status as a wali Allah. On
a more mundane level, the shaykh’s basic empathy for the suffering of
others—and his consummate skills as a spiritual physician—suggests that a
Sufi saint’s powers trump the wisdom and technological wonders of Western
science and medicine. Taken together, such miraculous anecdotes mark
Sufism as an alternative episteme—a parallel system of inner, esoteric knowl-
edge with real power and efficacy in the mundane world.
Ecstasy and Sobriety

Throughout his sacred biographies, Zauqi Shah displays a highly developed
aesthetic and spiritual sensibility. In one particular lesson, he compares life to
a dance, and God to an enraptured dancer: “The entire universe is a dance.
Dance is the beauty of movement, just as music is the beauty of sound and
poetry the beauty of words. We think that we are the ones doing this and
that. But everything is Him. What else is there? There is only Him. He
appears in various forms. He moves around, dances, sees, and is in ecstasy.”62
In true Chishti fashion, Zauqi Shah was particularly fond of qawwali (poetry
put to music) and Sufi musical assemblies (sama'). He was unwavering in his
defense of the tradition and had little regard for anyone who questioned its
Islamic credentials. When asked by a disciple to explain the controversy sur-
rounding sama', he replied, “[T]hose preachers [maulvis] whose hearts are
not moved by music are worse than snakes!”63
Zauqi Shah viewed sama' as a powerful tool and a vital catalyst for spiri-
tual development. In fact, his name—zauqi, meaning “tasting”—was given
to him by Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan to reflect his thirst for the direct, unmedi-
ated experience of spiritual ecstasy.64 Yet the shaykh’s enthusiasm for music
was tempered by a firm insistence on ritual decorum. According to Sirat-i
Zauqi,
Hazrat Shah Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, had a great fondness for
sama'. He did not listen to it often, but on the occasion of the death anniver-
saries ['urs] of Sufi saints he always listened to it. He was never seen in ecstasy.
He always continued to sit with complete composure until the end. He never
used to wave his hands, nor did he cry out. Instead, he always remained seated
in silence. While younger persons became tired and began to move about, he
continued to sit in one place like a block of stone, his posture never changing.
He had a very refined taste for both music and poetry, and for this reason his
gatherings were of high standard. There were no outcries of ecstasy, and no
unrefined poems [ ghazals].65
Given this emphasis on sobriety and self-control, Zauqi Shah found the
carnival-like atmosphere of many public qawwali sessions especially distasteful.
As with miracles, he viewed any public displays of ecstasy as a sign of spiritual
immaturity. Malfuzat-i Zauqi contains a revealing discourse in this regard:
Hazrat, may God have mercy upon him, was reading a book when he remarked:
“In qawwali, ecstatic trance [wajd] is a great feat for a beginner, but a weakness
for one who is spiritually advanced. In the beginning, when the soul [ruh] is
delighted by something new it goes into ecstasy. Later on, once that state has
been experienced several times, the pleasure continues but ecstasy does not
come. Similarly, when a person eats a delicious mango or sweet for the first time
he shakes with rapture. But once he’s eaten it several times, he still feels the
pleasure but not with such ecstasy.”66
For Zauqi Shah, sama' was appropriate only for the elite practitioners on the
Sufi path.
Zauqi Shah’s unwavering faith in the efficacy and legality of Sufi music are
most clearly revealed in a remarkable incident recorded in Hajj-i Zauqi.
During his final Hajj pilgrimage in 1951, the shaykh managed to arrange for
a qawwali performance in a private home within the sacred precincts of
Mecca—a practice prohibited by anti-Sufi, Wahhabi doctrine. According to

the text,
In Saudi Arabia, qawwali is prohibited, but Allah Almighty arranged for

qawwali inside the noble sanctuary [haram sharif ] in Mecca. A qawwali master
Rahmat Allah Shah Sahab was living there at that time. He was invited one
evening and the qawwali was held in a house inside the noble sanctuary. It was
an incredibly intoxicating sama'. Shah Sahab presented the finest poetic verses
and created a wonderful mood. When he sang in praise of Khwaja Gharib
Nawaz [Mu'in ad-Din Chishti (d. 1236)], may God have mercy upon him, it
seemed as though the saint was actually present. Afterwards when I asked
Hazrat—may God have mercy upon him—about this, he replied, “I offered
Fatiha for him [i.e., reciting the opening chapter of the Qur'an], so from the
very beginning he was attentive to us.”67
This extraordinary story serves several hagiographical purposes. By empha-

sizing Zauqi Shah’s role as a patron and apologist for sama', the shaykh’s
biographers mark him as a quintessential Chishti master. Zauqi Shah’s link to
the Chishti legacy is made explicit through his direct connection with the
paradigmatic Chishti saint: Mu'in ad-Din Chishti of Ajmer. By offering
prayers in honor of his spiritual predecessor, Zauqi Shah marks the piety and
power of his South Asian Sufi lineage in the precincts of Islam’s most holy
site—a gesture, we are told, that is reciprocated by the saint’s blessing of this
unique spiritual gathering.
Lifestyle
Zauqi Shah’s biographers continuously emphasize his disregard for material
possessions and worldly power. Numerous accounts highlight his willful
acceptance of a life of poverty, simplicity, and asceticism. According to Sirat-i
Zauqi, for example, “Even in the face of poverty he was satisfied and patient.
In his early days as a dervish there were many times when he went without
food, but the countenance of his face never showed his condition, even as he
met with his friends and followers until late at night. He followed the path of
Hajji Imdad Allah Muhajir Makki Sahab, may God have mercy upon him,
insisting that dervishes should avoid directly asking for assistance.”68
Zauqi Shah viewed physical suffering and deprivation as useful spiritual
tools. A life of poverty, he believed, taught the Sufi to surrender to the Divine
will (tawwakul) and helped to tame the lower self (nafs). “Allah brings mis-
fortune to his servants in order to weaken the strength of their lower selves
and draw them nearer to Him,” he explains to his disciples. “In a life of pleas-
ure and ease, egotism gains the upper hand, and a person is distanced from
God.”69 Zauqi Shah’s biographers also note, however, that the shaykh recog-
nized the importance of accepting donations and handling money in the
interest of social welfare. His hagiographies each portray the shaykh as will-
fully engaged in worldly matters but only to the extent that such activities
would forward spiritual development or provided succor for others. In one
particular lecture the shaykh remarks, “The status of those saints [awliya'
Allah] who have worldly possessions and wealth is very high. Their powers
are so strong that they can perform both their spiritual and worldly duties.”70
Public and Political Life

Throughout his life, Zauqi Shah remained engaged with the world and active
on the public stage. As a vocal advocate for an independent Muslim nation in
South Asia, he participated directly in politics as a writer, an active member of
the Muslim League, and a personal confidant of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The
level and duration of the shaykh’s political commitments are indeed remark-
able. They also deviate sharply from the traditional, premodern pattern of
Chishti leadership that favored withdrawal from public, political life.
Zauqi Shah’s biographers chart his political activities. At the same time,
there is a marked attempt to downplay their importance for his legacy as a
Chishti Sabiri spiritual master. Sirat-i Zauqi, for example, contains a reveal-
ing discourse in which the shaykh orders his murids to avoid all contact with
government officials and wealthy people. According to the text, Zauqi Shah
never initiated such contact himself: “Hazrat Shah Sahab, may God have
mercy upon him, never flattered wealthy people or government officials, nor
did he follow their orders. Some such people certainly did go to him, but
they were his followers or friends from earlier days. If someone came to him
and requested a favor from such people he used to say, ‘My work is to break
connections with these people and bind myself to God, but you drag me
towards worldly people!’”71 In another passage, Zauqi Shah stresses the
importance of inner, spiritual development as a precursor to outer, societal
reform. “The progress of the nation depends on its moral improvement
[akhlaqi islah],” he tells his followers. “Instead of preaching to the whole
nation, I have begun to reform just one person, and that person is myself. If
each one of us were to act similarly, the whole nation would improve.”72
Clearly, Zauqi Shah found no contradiction in balancing his duties as a spiri-
tual teacher with his strong political commitments. As we will see in chapter 3,
among today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples the shaykh is remembered as both an
enlightened Sufi master and an ardent nationalist—the de facto spiritual
founder of Pakistan.
Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi (1915–1978)

The life and legacy of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi represent an anomaly in the
history of the Chishti Sabiri order. The details of his personal history and
spiritual quest diverge sharply from the traditional mold of Indo-Muslim
sainthood. An Englishman born into a family of immense wealth and privi-
lege, he converted to Islam as a young man. In the twilight of the British
colonial era, he left his family and his inheritance behind to travel throughout
much of the Muslim world in search of spiritual guidance. Shahidullah’s jour-
ney eventually took him to South Asia—not, as for so many of his British
contemporaries, in pursuit of a career as a colonial administrator but instead

for a life of sacrifice, poverty, and piety as a Sufi adept. The shrine of Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi in Karachi, Pakistan, is shown in figure 2.1.
From his childhood in London to his final decades in Karachi as a Chishti
Sabiri teaching shaykh, the trajectory of Shahidullah Faridi’s life inverts the
dynamics of the colonial encounter. For contemporary Chishti Sabiri disci-
ples he remains a shining example of the universal truth of Sufism’s power to
transcend the mundane boundaries of class, ethnicity, and race. The words of
a senior male murid encapsulate the pervasive sense of awe and respect that
disciples invariably express when considering Shahidullah’s legacy:
Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi, may God have mercy on him, was one of the great
friends of Allah, and thousands of people received spiritual knowledge
[ma'rifa] and nearness to Allah from him. Even now he is training people! His
life and his teachings are a great lesson for all the nations. The Creator of the
Universe is kind to human beings without regard to race, religion, or any other
distinction. He is kind to all, and all can achieve His nearness. If Hazrat
Shahidullah Sahab has been given such a great status, everyone who comes in
this path can receive it! (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur)
Today Shahidullah Faridi’s life is memorialized through both texts and

oral narratives. The shaykh’s own corpus of writings in Urdu and English are
printed and distributed by the contemporary order. In addition, a record of
his spiritual discourses—compiled by his designated successor, Shaykh
Sira 'Ali Muhammad—was published by the silsila in 1996. This book titled
Malfuzat-i shaykh comprises nineteen eclectic lectures dating from
September 1970 to August 1977. It offers an intimate portrait of
Shahidullah’s personality, worldview, and teaching style.73 Beyond this text,
the shaykh’s disciples continue the dynamic process of emplotting his sacred
biography through a story-telling network. More than a quarter of a century
after Shahidullah’s death, this repository of personal memories remains the
primary source of collective knowledge about his life and legacy.

Shahidullah Faridi was born John Gilbert Lennard in London in 1915. His
father, John William Lennard, came from a family of German descent and
rose to wealth and social prominence during the nineteenth century as one of
the largest paper manufacturers in all of Great Britain. Shahidullah was raised
with three siblings: an elder sister and two brothers. The eldest son, chris-
tened John William after his father, was born in 1913 and also converted to
Islam. Beyond these skeletal details, virtually nothing is recorded about
Shahidullah’s upbringing in the silsila’s records. Contemporary disciples,
however, do narrate a few select anecdotes from his childhood, events that
are seen to prefigure his future conversion. For example, as boys both he and
his brothers reportedly rebelled against attending Christian church services,
and both had a lifelong aversion to eating pork. Such stories are clearly meant
61
Figure 2.1 The Shrine of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi (d. 1978), Karachi, Pakistan
to bend the contours of biography to fit the hagiographic mold. Shahidullah

encouraged this pervasive biographical erasure with his own silence regarding
his personal background. As a senior male disciple told me, “Hazrat Sahab
never liked to talk about his past, about his parents, about his family. I even
went to England in 1958 when his father was still living in London. But
Hazrat Sahab never gave me the address, he never encouraged me to go to
him, and I didn’t have the courage to ask about it” (September 2, 2002,
Karachi). After leaving England in his early twenties, Shahidullah returned
only once—to visit his dying mother who, according to the hagiographical
record, converted to Islam on her deathbed.
Following Partition in 1947, Shahidullah surrendered his British passport
and accepted Pakistani citizenship. While the shaykh’s physical appearance
always marked him as a foreigner in his adopted homeland, in speech, dress,
and demeanor he conformed to local customs. As the following anecdote
narrated by another senior male murid illustrates, Shahidullah clearly viewed
his own past as irrelevant to his central identity as a Chishti Sabiri Sufi master
within the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad:
Once Captain Wahid Bakhsh Sahab and Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab went to visit
the shrine of the saint Miyan Mir in Lahore. A Sufi mendicant [majhzub] stood
in their way. The man was very dirty and unkempt, but Hazrat Sahab was very
kind to him. Then the majhzub asked, “Where is your hometown?” Hazrat
replied, “My hometown is London.” Then he laughed and said, “No, no. Your
hometown is Medina!” He repeated this many times. Hazrat Sahab enjoyed
this immensely.
Whenever someone would ask him about his past life in England or about his
family or his brother, questions concerned with his previous life before coming
to India, he became very angry. He would say, “I have come out of that gutter,
why do you want to put me in that gutter again? Please don’t ask such
questions!” (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur)
For the chroniclers of Shahidullah’s life, his sacred biography effectively

begins with a search for spiritual truth. Quitting his studies at Oxford
University, he was overcome by an insatiable curiosity, wanderlust, and spiri-
tual restlessness. Shahidullah’s interest in Sufism was reportedly sparked by
his discovery of Reynold A. Nicholson’s (1868–1945) translation of Kashf
al-mahjub [The Unveiling of the Secrets], the famous Persian treatise on
Sufism written by the eleventh-century master 'Ali Hujwiri (d. 1072).74 In
1936, both he and his elder brother, John William, converted to Islam in an
East End mosque at the hands of a Bengali imam who gave them their
Muslim names: Shahidullah (“Martyr of God”) and Faruq Ahmad.
Determined to find a Sufi master to guide them, the brothers then left
England. They traveled throughout Europe and then onward to Morocco,
Egypt, and Syria.
In 1937 their quest brought them to India. They initially stayed in Dera
Nawab—a town in the southern Punjab, south of Multan—as the guests of
the local Nawab of Bahawalpur. The Nawab had previously met the brothers
in England shortly after their conversion to Islam while vacationing as the

guest of their father, John William Lennard. Impressed with the young men,
the Nawab had encouraged them to come to India in their search for a spiri-
tual guide. His patronage proved invaluable to the young Englishmen.75
Soon after their arrival the brothers were introduced to Maulana Asraf Ali
Thanawi, one of the leaders of the Deoband madrasa and a prolific writer
and activist (interviews: April 28, 2001, Bahawalpur and September 2, 2002,
Karachi).76 Though Thanawi agreed to accept the Englishmen as disciples,
Shahidullah had a dream that indicated they should continue their search.
Subsequent travels, however, proved fruitless. Disheartened, the brothers
made their way to Bombay where they planned to book a ticket on a
steamship for a return trip to England. There by chance Faruq Ahmad met a
man known as Khatib Sahab, the caretaker of a local Sufi shrine in Bombay
and a disciple of the Chishti Sabiri master Shaykh Waris Hasan. Khatib Sahab
advised Shahidullah and Furuq Ahmad to travel to Hyderabad, Deccan,
where his teacher’s successor, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, lived and guided a
group of disciples. With this recommendation as an introduction, the broth-
ers received permission to visit and departed for Hyderabad.
Their first encounter with Muhammad Zauqi Shah took place on
September 18, 1938. Upon meeting the young Englishmen, the shaykh is
reported to have commented, “If you have come to me to witness supernat-
ural acts, this is the wrong place. However, if you have come to find God, you
must be prepared for a long and arduous journey.”77 Convinced that he had
finally discovered his designated spiritual guide, Shahidullah took formal dis-
cipleship (bay 'at) on October 3. Since Faruq Ahmad had previously become
a disciple of Frithjof Schuon in Paris, however, Zauqi Shah insisted that he
must obtain permission from his shaykh before he could accept him as a
murid. When Schuon’s response arrived by letter, Faruq Ahmad joined his
younger brother as a full-fledged initiate in the Chishti Sabiri order (inter-
view: September 2, 2001, Karachi).78
Education
After converting to Islam and leaving behind his Oxford education,
Shahidullah Faridi immersed himself in studies on Islamic history and faith.
While he never received formal madrasa training, he eventually became well
versed in the Qur'an, hadith, and Sufi literature.79 In one of his published
discourses, Shahidullah asserts that his own authority rests on direct, per-
sonal experience. Here he draws a sharp distinction between inner (batin)
and outer (zahir) dimensions of knowledge and practice, saying, “Those
noble Sufis who have gained acceptance in genuine silsilas are the true
rulers. As Hajji Imdad Allah al-Muhajir Makki Sahab, may God have mercy
upon him, has said, unless there is inner knowledge [batini 'ilm], outward
knowledge [zahiri 'ilm] is worthless. This is the truth. In the absence
of inner manifestation and vision a human being simply cannot have the
correct perspective.”80
As a Sufi master and a teaching shaykh, Shahidullah privileged the insights

of inner, intuitive experience over the discursive knowledge found in books.
Even so, he maintained an interest in worldly matters throughout his life.
Much like his own mentor, the shaykh frequently punctuated his theological
discussions with references to the lessons (and shortcomings) of science.81
From the perspective of Shahidullah’s disciples, however, the shaykh’s unusual
background and experiences only made his erudition and advanced spiritual
status all the more remarkable and convincing. In the words of a senior male
murid,
Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab was a descendent of the Holy Prophet, God bless him
and grant him salvation. Yet he granted succession [khilafat] to Hazrat
Shahidullah, an English gentleman! He was a newcomer, a new convert. He
was not a religious scholar, an expert in Qur'an interpretation, or a scholar of
hadith who is born into the Muslim community and acquires a great status. He
never had these qualifications. He never received any degrees of scholarship
from any Muslim university or madrasa, only the training of his shaykh. Of
course, his knowledge was vast. More than that of any scholar! So he became
the principal successor [khalifa-i azim]. It was all the order of Allah, because of
the fire of love, the sincerity, and the devotion in his heart. (April 30, 2001,
Bahawalpur)
Spiritual Training
Shahidullah Faridi’s religious education consisted of years of rigorous spiri-
tual training (suluk). This was a hands-on, experiential introduction to the
inner dimensions of Sufi doctrine and ritual practice. In September 1939, on
the advice of Zauqi Shah, he and Faruq Ahmad moved from Hyderabad back
to the state of Bahawalpur. There they enjoyed the patronage of the local
Nawab who was so impressed with the young English converts’ dedication
that he secured a position for them as captains in the Bahawalpur State Army.
This arrangement allowed the brothers to commit themselves to their spiri-
tual disciplines while avoiding conscription in the British Army during the
course of the Second World War.82
In between their military duties, Shahidullah and Faruq Ahmad main-
tained a strict regimen of ritual practices as prescribed by their shaykh. This
involved an intense program of daily prayers, zikr, and muraqaba, aug-
mented by prolonged periods of fasting and isolation. The brothers also
traveled frequently to Sufi shrines for extended spiritual retreats and regularly
attended the annual 'urs celebrations of local saints. At Ajmer Sharif they
often worked in the langar, serving food and water to impoverished pilgrims
(interview: March 24, 2001, Islamabad). In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Shahidullah
recalls an extended pilgrimage to a number of Sufi shrines in the company of
his shaykh:
Once we went with Hazrat [Zauqi Shah], may God have mercy upon him, to
Hyderabad, Deccan, and from there we also visited Daulatabad and Khuldabad
where there are countless shrines of the noble saints. It is reported that fourteen
hundred saints went together from Delhi to Hyderabad and their tombs are in
Daulatabad and Khuldabad. We presented ourselves at those shrines. But at the
shrine of Hazrat Sayyid Yusuf Husseini, may God have mercy upon him—the
father of Hazrat Sayyid Muhammad Gesu Daraz, may God have mercy upon
him—I did not perceive any spiritual blessings in my heart.
I asked for Hazrat’s guidance about this and he replied, “When a person
becomes a disciple, his shaykh prepares a ‘skeleton program’ [sic, in English] for
him. After this, all of his training proceeds according to this program. It is pos-
sible, however, that certain events and experiences are simply not included in
that program, and for that reason the seeker is not affected by them . . . This
illustrates the power of the shaykh in controlling the disciple’s spiritual course
[suluk]. Tomorrow after morning prayer go there again by yourself.” Thanks to
Hazrat’s spiritual influence, during this second visit I began to feel the spiritual
blessings and sensed a strong connection [nisbat] [with the saint].83
This anecdote gives some sense of the intimacy and intensity of the master-
disciple relationship—the backbone of Sufi ritual practice that will be dis-
cussed in detail in chapter 4. Shahidullah and Faruq Ahmad’s spiritual training
was completed under the strict supervision of Zauqi Shah. Yet remarkably the
brother actually spent relatively little time in the presence of their shaykh. In
Malfuzat-i shaykh, Shahidullah notes that Zauqi Shah purposefully limited
their interactions with him to no more than fifteen days at a time in order to
encourage their independence and spur their self-discipline.84
Shahidullah’s journey became significantly more difficult, however, when
Faruq Ahmad died in Lahore on February 13, 1945 after a prolonged bout
of pneumonia. The details of his tragic death and burial within the tomb
complex of his patron saint 'Ali Hujwiri are outlined in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq.
In an emotional letter written to Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah recounts the scene
of Faruq Ahmad’s burial, along with a powerful vision of the Prophet
Muhammad that confirms for him his brother’s advanced spiritual status:
When Faruq Ahmad was in the agonies of death, I saw the Master of the Two
Worlds [the Prophet Muhammad], God bless him and grant him salvation, at
his head with you [Zauqi Shah] standing by his side. The saints [Awliya' Allah]
had formed a circle and were dancing . . . When Faruq Ahmad, may God have
mercy upon him, was being lowered into the grave, once again I saw that the
Pleasure of the Two Worlds [the Prophet], God bless him and grant him salva-
tion, was standing at the side of the grave and you were there next to him.
A host of saints came forward in turn and paid their respects. Everyone present
there also saw that at the time of prayer a small cloud appeared directly over the
site and stopped there. Throughout the time of the funeral, a light rain fell from
that cloud of mercy only above that spot in Lahore.85
According to the text, there were insufficient funds to fulfill Faruq

Ahmad’s desire to be buried in the compound of Hujwiri’s shrine, and an
alternative location was hastily arranged. As the burial was about to com-
mence, however, a stranger suddenly arrived and announced that he would
provide a plot within the mazar. Faruq Ahmad’s grave can still be found
within a small, subterranean room under the large shrine complex. In inter-
views, I was told that when an underground parking garage was constructed
at the shrine during the 1980s, many such tombs were exhumed and relo-
cated. Workers reportedly attempted to move Faruq’s tomb as well. Yet when
they began to unearth his grave, they discovered that his body was still fresh
and had not decomposed—one of the well-known tropes of sainthood.
Though it is impossible to verify this remarkable story, Faruq Ahmad’s tomb
was indeed left undisturbed. Today it is maintained by an elderly devotee and
frequently visited by Chishti Sabiri murids.
In the years following his brother’s death, Shahidullah continued his ritual
practices while simultaneously participating in business and family life. On
the advice of Zauqi Shah, he moved from Bombay to Karachi in February
1947. On September 7, 1947 Zauqi Shah and his family joined him in
Pakistan.86 Along with several murids, their families shared a humble two-
bedroom flat on the upper floors of a building near the main railway station.
One small room was reserved for Zauqi Shah and his wife, while the other
room was partitioned, half for women in the family and the other for the men
(interview: September 2, 2001, Karachi). These cramped living quarters dou-
bled as a space for spiritual practices, including the weekly performance of
communal zikr. In the final years of Zauqi Shah’s life, Shahidullah often led
these zikr sessions as his shaykh’s health progressively deteriorated. For disci-
ples, this provided a clear indication of his advanced spiritual status and
potential to inherit the khilafat as a Chishti Sabiri master.

Zauqi Shah died during Hajj on September 13, 1951. According to several
senior disciples, before his death he appointed both Shahidullah and Wahid
Bakhsh as his spiritual heirs, distinguishing Shahidullah as his principal suc-
cessor (khalifa-i azam). At the time, however, none of this was made public,
and for the next four years the silsila was effectively without a guiding shaykh.
During this interim period, senior disciples implored Shahidullah to accept
disciples of his own. He resisted, however, asserting that he had not yet
received explicit permission to do so. This situation changed dramatically in
1955. After returning to Karachi from the 'urs of Baba Farid ad-Din Ganj-i
Shakkar in Pakpattan, Shahidullah had a vivid dream in which his status as
khalifa was confirmed by the patron saint himself. This paradigmatic experi-
ence is not recorded in any text, but during my interviews I heard it nar-
rated—with slight variations—on numerous occasions. The account of a
highly respected male murid—a disciple of Zauqi Shah and close personal
friend of Shahidullah—illustrates how even private dreams are progressively
incorporated into the silsila’s collective memory:
On the ninth of Muharram, Hazrat Shahidullah had a dream. He saw a vision

that he was standing in the shrine (darbar) of Hazrat Baba Sahab, may God
have mercy upon him. There was a large group of people gathered there and
Baba Sahab himself was standing at the door of his mazar. The people were
shouting at him, “Please, we want to become your disciples (murids). Make us
your disciples!” Baba Sahab looked around the crowd, as though he was search-
ing for somebody. And then he stared directly at Hazrat Sahab and called to
him by name. He said, “You make these people murids!” Hazrat Sahab replied,
“My shaykh has not allowed me.” And then Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab, may
God have mercy upon him, appeared and said, “Of course I’ve allowed you!”
Then Baba Sahab said, “Make them disciples and inform the people of this.”
(May 21, 2001, Karachi)
When this revelatory dream was made public, Shahidullah entered an

entirely new phase of his life. Soon after he officially dropped his surname,
Lennard, and adopted the moniker “Faridi” to mark his special relationship
with the saint in Pakpattan (interview: September 2, 2001, Karachi). For a
number of years, Shahidullah accepted murids in the name of his teacher,
Zauqi Shah (khilafat-i niabati), but eventually he accepted bay'at independ-
ently. For the final twenty-three years of his life, Shahiduallah Faridi guided a
large and diverse group of disciples as a full-fledged Pakistani Chishti Sabiri
spiritual master. An English convert was transformed into a teaching shaykh.
Among his many disciples, Shahidullah Faridi is remembered as a man of
immense sophistication, integrity, and piety. As a spiritual mentor, he was
renowned for his openness and tolerance. In the words of a female disciple
who took bay'at with Shahidullah as a young woman in Peshawar,
Our Hazrat Sahab was never concerned about the outward appearance of a per-
son. Back in the 1970s in Pakistan, it was the fashion for women to wear very
short skirts and trousers. I remember a woman and a couple of her friends in
Karachi who would come and meet Hazrat Sahab, dressed up as they wanted.
One day, somebody raised an objection and said, “They should at least be
dressed in a graceful and dignified manner.” To that Hazrat Sahab replied,
“No, we Sufis have nothing to do with a person’s appearance. It is the inward
that we deal with.” In that manner, I think he was very broad-minded, relaxed,
and not at all strict. (October 31, 2001, Lahore)
As this narrative illustrates, Shahidullah was fully accessible to women and

treated them as the spiritual equals of his male murids. The shaykh, in fact,
had a large number of female disciples, many of whom were particularly
active in the order’s daily life. In a last will and testament (wasyat nama) com-
posed a year before his death in 1978, Shahidullah singles out several senior
female disciples by name, praising them for their knowledge and lofty spiri-
tual status. If the Chishti Sabiri tradition allowed, he asserts, he would have
named them his successors.87 Shahidullah’s legacy continues to inform con-
temporary Chishti Sabiri opinions and practices. To this day, many of the
most respected disciples in the silsila are women. Their wisdom and advice is
eagerly sought after by all murids, female and male, young and old alike.
While no official records were ever maintained, Shahidullah’s formal disci-
ples are said to have numbered in the thousands. His Pakistani murids were
scattered across the country and represented a broad spectrum of socioeco-

nomic and ethnic backgrounds. Given his own personal background, it is not
surprising that Shahidullah attracted a large number of foreign converts and
Muslims from diverse nationalities as well. In the last decades of his life, he
met regularly with a group of foreign students at a large Islamic Center in
Karachi, giving lectures in both English and Urdu, some of which were
recorded on tape. Many of these foreign students eventually became disci-
ples, and several of them remain in Pakistan to this day. Significantly, the
shaykh also had a number of followers from East Pakistan—today’s
Bangladesh—and traveled himself on one occasion for an extended stay in
Rangpur to visit them. The story of this connection was narrated to me by a
senior disciple. During a stay in Ajmer Sharif in 1956, Shahidullah was
approached by a man named Yasin who was “clad in a lungi and kurta,
bearded, with a cap.” Yasin told him that he often came to Ajmer Sharif and
had been searching for a shaykh for many years. This time, however, Khwaja
Sahab himself—the saint of Ajmer, Mu'in ad-Din Chishti—had specifically
directed him in a dream to seek out Hazrat Shahidullah. For contemporary
disciples this is a significant story. This mystical, Uwaysi connection also pre-
figures Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani’s subsequent relationship with a large contin-
gent of murids from Malaysia (interview: September 2, 2001, Karachi).
Shahidullah is remembered as a patient but firm teacher. He mentored dis-
ciples who were committed to the discipline of suluk, and his discourses are
full of practical advice on the details of ritual performance. The shaykh had lit-
tle regard for those who came to him only with worldly problems, however,
and discouraged disciples from sending anyone to him merely for amulets
(tawiz).88 Shahidullah maintained a busy schedule attending to his disciples.
Just as Zauqi Shah before him, he never lived in a khanaqah. Instead, he held
weekly zikr sessions and met individually with disciples at his home near the
central train station in Karachi. He also traveled frequently both to visit
murids and to participate in pilgrimages to Sufi shrines. Following a heart
attack in the late 1960s, Shahidullah moved his family to another house in
the north of the city where they lived until his death in 1978. He was buried
nearby in a large cemetery called Sakhi Hassan. According to a senior disci-
ple, the complex arrangements necessary for the construction of a shrine
were made with remarkable speed and ease—a fact that murids see as noth-
ing short of miraculous (interview: September 2, 2002, Karachi). Today
Shahidullah’s marble tomb is housed in a whitewashed mazar adjoining a
spacious mosque. An adjacent graveyard contains plots for silsila members
who wish to be buried near their spiritual master. This simple, elegant shrine
complex is the final resting place of the first and only Chishti Sabiri shaykh
from outside South Asia.
Married Life
In keeping with prophetic tradition and the norms of the Chishti hagiograph-
ical habitus, Shahidullah Faridi viewed marriage as an essential component of
Sufi training. In one of his lectures, he quotes from a hadith to define

marriage as an expression of faith, arguing that piety should always take
precedence over wealth and beauty in choosing a mate.89 The anchor of
Shahidullah’s own personal and spiritual life was his wife Rashida Khatun. On
numerous occasions, murids recounted the story of his first encounter with
his future wife, known affectionately among disciples as Ammi Jan. During
his prolonged search for a spiritual guide in the 1940s, Shahidullah had a
vivid dream of an unknown shaykh, holding the hand of a small girl. Years
later, he was living with Zauqi Shah as a novice disciple when he met the
young woman from his dream. A senior male murid narrates the story:
Hazrat Sahab was living upstairs [in the home of Zauqi Shah]. Ammi Jan was
coming down the stairs, and he was going up. On the way they crossed paths.
Hazrat Sahab just stopped and looked at her, and this annoyed Ammi Jan a
great deal. In Islam, it is not proper to stare at a woman who is not in your fam-
ily. Later when they were married, Ammi Jan asked him, “Why did you look at
me that way that day we met? It’s against the shari'a and against the etiquette
[adab] of sainthood.” Hazrat explained, “When I saw a dream of Hazrat Zauqi
Shah Sahab for the first time, the young girl with him resembled your face.
When I looked at you I thought, ‘It’s the same girl who was with Hazrat Shah
Sahab!’ I was astonished by this. That’s why I looked. Otherwise there was no
intention.” (April 28, 2001, Bahawalpur)
Several disciples recounted a similar story about the saint Baba Farid Ganj-i
Shakkar who also met his future wife in a prescient dream. These hagio-
graphic parallels of Shahidullah Faridi and his namesake are seen as another
important marker of legitimacy, authority, and authenticity.
Shahidullah and Rashida Khatun were married in March 1946. Disciples
who knew them best attest that their relationship was based on a deep mutual
respect and admiration. “I have never seen any person with such respect for
his wife,” said one male murid. “He [Shahidullah Faridi] was her servant.
One could say that she was the daughter of his shaykh, so that’s why he
respected her. But I know that even if she wasn’t he would have respected
her. It was part of his nature. This is an example for us all” (April 28, 2001,
Bahawalpur). As a convert and a cultural outsider, Shahidullah’s marriage
into the sayyid family of his own mentor was seen as a vital public affirmation
of his spiritual status. Zauqi Shah made this explicit, describing the marriage
as a salient example of the primacy of meritocracy over blood genealogy in
Sufism. Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq records the shaykh’s views: “In Islam we are all
brothers and there is no family superiority. In the Holy Qur'an there is only
the command that virtuous men are for virtuous women and evil men are for
evil women. This is the only statement to be found. Family and genealogy are
not important. Look at what I have done, I have given my daughter to a
Muslim convert! He left his own country and had not thought to take a wife.
Yet his heart is filled with passion for the true Islam and for this reason there
was no obstacle to the match.”90
Chishti Sabiri hagiographies emphasize that Ammi Jan was herself deeply
immersed in Sufi practices from childhood. As a young girl she received
bay'at at the hands of her father’s guide, Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan. And
growing up in Zauqi’s Shah’s house she endured great privations but bene-
fited from the atmosphere of intense religious devotion. Among Chishti
Sabiri murids, Ammi Jan was revered for her piety and sanctity. In the words
of a senior male disciple who knew her well,
Ammi Jan was a unique person; she was not of this world. Her father used to
nearly starve her and the family for weeks at a time. Right from the cradle she
was used to spiritual striving [mujahada]. Shah Sahab, may God have mercy
upon him, used to follow his own mujahada with the whole family, it was not
done individually. And then she was married. She was the daughter of a qutb
[axis or pole, the apex of the hierarchy of Sufi saints], and was married to a
qutb! And she was the disciple of yet another qutb, Mawlana Waris Hasan
Sahab, may God have mercy upon him. (September 1, 2001, Karachi)
These lofty claims place Ammi Jan at the very center of an elect circle of spir-
itual masters.
Like her husband, Ammi Jan is remembered for her unique connection to
the saint, Baba Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar. With great emotion, another
senior disciple elaborated on this lifelong link with the saint of Pakpattan:
Ammi Jan was of very high status. She was a favorite of the saint. Whenever the
door was closed to the room of Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab, it was a sign that
some saint, or even the Holy Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation,
was present there. Once he was talking to a person and the door was closed.
Ammi Jan was then a very small child. She opened the door and Hazrat Zauqi
Shah Sahab just pointed [to the doorway], saying, “Go. Go away.” But the
saintly person with him was sitting there and said, “No, no. Let her come. She
is my daughter.” And then he put her on his lap. Afterward Hazrat Sahab told
Ammi Jan that the man was Baba Sahab [the saint, Farid ad-Din].
Whenever she would visit his mazar [Pakpattan Sharif], there was a wonder-
ful scene. People would gather, and there were such blessings. She attracted a
lot of women; no queen could receive such a reception. She had a very high sta-
tus. Even after the passing away of Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab she had a very
strong hold on the silsila. Everything was run under her guidance. (April 29,
2001, Bahawalpur)
While this intriguing hagiographic anecdote is not recorded in any text, it too
is now integrated into the contemporary silsila’s collective memory.
In his last will and testament written a year before his death in 1978,
Shahidullah outlines a unique role for Ammi Jan in the silsila, asking his dis-
ciples to honor her and follow her advice. In the shaykh’s words, “My first
command concerns the daughter of my shaykh who has been my life com-
panion for over thirty years and who is the priceless treasure entrusted to
me. Once I am no more, no one must cause her hardship or grief . . . This
counsel is for the entire silsila. She is the mother to all of you, and she
should be given the treatment due to a mother and her counsel must be
included in every matter.”91 Though they never had children, Ammi Jan and
Shahidullah Faridi adopted Ammi Jan’s nephew who was raised in their
home and treated as their own son. For the last twelve years of her life, she
lived with this young man and several close disciples in a house near
Shahidullah’s tomb in the Sakhi Hassan cemetery. And just as her husband
envisioned, she proved to be a solidifying influence during this period. In
effect, she served as a surrogate shaykh—her opinions and insights on both
spiritual and worldly matters were regularly solicited by both male and
female murids. Reflecting on this legacy, several murids highlighted the sym-
bolic significance of twelve years, noting that the saints Baba Farid Ganj-i
Shakkar and 'Ali Ahmad Sabir both underwent twelve years of spiritual
training before completing suluk (interview: September 2, 2001, Karachi).
Such parallels reveal the depth of reverence for Ammi Jan prevalent among
Chishti Sabiris to this day. Ammi Jan died in February 1990 and is buried in
a place of honor near her husband at the shrine.
Miracles
Shahidullah’s discourses offer relatively few insights on his attitude toward
miracles (karamat), but personal narratives suggest that here too he is
remembered as the model of propriety. Numerous disciples, however, did
recount examples of the shaykh’s powers over the forces of nature. For exam-
ple, his keen knowledge of numerous regional languages—Arabic, Persian,
Sanskrit, Hindi, and even Saraiki—was considered miraculous. On a less
mundane level, individual murids recalled demonstrations of Shahidullah’s
knowledge of future events and his powers as a healer and protector—all
common hagiographic motifs in Sufi hagiography. A young male murid
from a family with long Chishti Sabiri roots narrated an especially
remarkable event:
Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, had a disciple in
India. This man wished to go to Medina and remain there until he died. He was
called to work there as a government servant and was given a stipend. When he
was sent back to Pakistan, he was very upset. He went to Hazrat Sahab and said,
“Huzur, I wanted to die there, but now I’m back. You have to pray for me.
I want to go back.” Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi said, “Yes, I’ll pray.” The man
replied, “No! I want you to pray with me now.” Hazrat Sahab took him into
the next room. The man died suddenly a few days later and was buried some-
where near Maleer. That night his wife saw him in a dream and said to her,
“When you come to my grave tomorrow, do not worry. I am here in Medina.”
The next morning they went to the grave site and found only an empty hole
there. His body and even the soil was gone. This is a living miracle of Hazrat
Sahab! (September 2, 2001, Karachi)
It is of course impossible to objectively verify such accounts—in this case,

a secondhand retelling of an orally transmitted story of anonymous origin.
Nonetheless, their impact on the lives of contemporary disciples is beyond

question. Such hagiographical stories serve as key tropes in the construction
and narration of sacred biography. They mark moments of rupture in the
natural order that, for Chishti Sabiri believers, confirms the tangible reality of
Islamic sainthood.
Ecstasy and Sobriety

Despite his atypical background, Shahidullah’s temperament, lifestyle, and
teaching style conformed to the premodern paradigm of an Indo-Muslim
Sufi shaykh. Though a great lover of poetry and, in particular, sama' (music),
he is remembered for his constant sobriety and careful attention to the dic-
tates of propriety and etiquette (adab). Significantly, when narrating his
sacred biography Chishti Sabiri disciples often draw explicit parallels between
his life and that of the Prophet Muhammad. A prominent female murid
expresses a common sentiment about the shaykh’s unique spiritual status:
I feel that Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi was very close to the Prophet, in all his
actions. This is my own interpretation. He lived to the age of sixty-three, like
the Holy Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation, and became khalifa
at age forty . . . Hazrat Shahidullah’s personal migration (hijrat) was even
more difficult than our Prophet’s, may God bless him and grant him salvation,
because he left behind his religion, his language, his family. It was something
that no human being can do, honestly. He was the chosen one. When people
who do not believe in these things hear about him and read his books, they say
the same thing—that he was the chosen one and nobody can be like him.
I think he was the biggest saint of the century. (June 17, 2001, Lahore)
When he was nearing the age of sixty-three, Shahidullah’s heart condition

worsened. His personal physician told him that his heart had become
enlarged and recommended that the shaykh travel abroad for medical treat-
ment. “I will never go abroad for treatment,” Shahidullah reportedly said,
“My life is in accord with that of the Holy Prophet, and living on earth more
than sixty-three years is itself against the sunna” (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur).
In life and even in death, Shahidullah is remembered as the very embodiment
of both shari'a and sunna—a living reflection of the Prophetic model,
murids insist, all the more impressive given his British upbringing.
Lifestyle
Though first and foremost a Chishti Sabiri teaching shaykh, Shahidullah was
also a full participant in the daily affairs of family and business. For him, this
too was a key component of Sufi practice and a vital element distinguishing
Sufism from other spiritual traditions. Malfuzat-i shaykh documents
Shahidullah’s views on comparative mysticism:
There is a striking difference between Islamic spirituality [ruhaniyat] and that

of other religions. Our spiritual people continue to live in the world as normal
Muslims after completing their training. This is one of the distinctions. Their
contemplation is not like that of the Christians. Most of the Christian mystics
have been monks who have abandoned the world. It is the same with the
Hindus . . . Those who say that the Sufis teach people to abandon the world
and not to engage in worldly work are mistaken. It is absolute foolishness for a
Sufi to think that he should have no connection with the world or that Sufism
has nothing to do with worldly matters. This too is a mistake.92
Shahidullah owned and operated a small business importing high-quality

paper and stationary when he first lived in Bombay. Originally called
J.G Lennard and Company, he later transferred the company to Karachi
following Partition (interview: September 1, 2001, Karachi). Disciples note
that Shahidullah’s experiences in worldly matters added another dimension
to his role as a teaching shaykh. The shaykh encouraged his followers to dis-
cuss all kinds of matters with him as well, both spiritual and worldly.
According to a senior disciple, a murid of Waris Hasan who first met
Shahidullah Faridi as a young man in 1949,
After my father’s death and after the passing away of Shah Sahab [Muhammad
Zauqi Shah], there was a big vacuum for me. So it was Hazrat Sahab, may God
have mercy upon him, who became a father figure for me. I used to talk to him
about very intimate matters which I would not tell anyone else. And he encour-
aged me to talk to him about anything. At times I used to hold myself back and
not tell him things, but he used to ask me about them. He used to draw me into
talking about them. I felt that talking about the everyday world [dunya] with
him was too mundane, so I would avoid talking about it. Then he would ask
me, “How is business? How is your factory? What are you doing?” All those
things. (May 21, 2001, Karachi)
The shaykh’s own lifestyle was marked by extreme frugality and simplicity—
a stark contrast with the life of wealth and comfort he had known as a child.
After leaving England, Shahidullah never accepted the offers of financial sup-
port from his concerned family. At one point, his father learned about his dif-
ficult living conditions in Karachi. Determined to help, he arranged to
purchase a thousand Morris Minor taxis so that Shahidullah might start a
new business and generate a large income. According to a murid, his father
wrote to him and said, “For generations we have built a sound financial
empire. Though you have converted to Islam, so what? You are my son.
Come and take it.” Hazrat Sahab responded, “I am a faqir of Allah. These
things have no attraction for me” (March 24, 2001, Islamabad). Shahidullah
then distributed the taxis to those in need around the city, keeping nothing
for himself.
Another oft-repeated anecdote echoes this salient theme of indifference to
worldly possessions. In the words of another male disciple,
Hazrat Sahab was living almost at the level of starvation, but he did not accept
a penny from his father. There is a very intimate story about this. His father told
him, “You won’t accept anything from me, but I have some of your mother’s
jewelry. Since your elder brother is no longer alive, I’m sending it to you.”
Hazrat said, “No! I don’t need anything. I have so much, I don’t need it. You
give it to my sister in Paris.” When Ammi Jan heard about this, she said, “Why
did you do that? You denied yourself all of the things your father offered you.
Why did you deny me this?” The reply he gave her was fantastic. He said, “In
comparison with the blessings your father has given us, you prefer these
stones?” Ammi Jan related this story to my mother and told her, “After he said
that, I felt so small. There was no question then of accepting it.” (May 21,
2001, Karachi)
Such stories reinforce the Chishti hagiographical habitus. As a devoted Sufi

teacher, Shahidullah engages the world in order to serve others. Leading by
example, the shaykh willfully surrenders his material possessions in favor of
the riches of spiritual wealth.

Like his predecessors, Shahidullah was politically savvy. Even so, a survey of
his public writings reveals relatively little commentary on political matters.
This pervasive silence is mirrored in Shahidullah’s public persona. After
immigrating to Pakistan, the shaykh never formally joined a political party,
and he was never as politically outspoken as either his spiritual master, Zauqi
Shah, or his friend and fellow disciple Wahid Bakhsh. Perhaps his status as an
outsider—and an Englishman living in South Asia in the twilight of the
British Raj, no less—prompted Shahidullah to be wary of voicing his personal
political views in public. Regardless of the motivation, the consequences are
predictable: among today’s Chishti Sabiris, the shaykh is remembered more
for his personal piety and spiritual teachings than for his political opinions. As
a citizen of Pakistan, however, Shahidullah was clearly concerned with the
country’s well-being and development. While his collective discourses and
writings overwhelmingly focus on the Sufi path, he does occasionally address
an array of social issues, from political administration and sectarianism to the
institutionalization of Islamic law. Not surprisingly, his opinions, when
voiced, echo those of his mentor, Zauqi Shah.
There is one common theme in Shahidullah’s teachings that sets him
apart, however. Time and again he emphasizes that spiritual development is
an essential prerequisite for anyone who hopes to engage in meaningful polit-
ical activism or institutional reform. In a lecture recorded in Malfuzat-i
shaykh, Shahiduallah exclaims, “If a person wants to examine the political
facet of Islam, or its economic or judicial dimensions, he can look at all of
them. But first of all his faith and connection with Allah, his inner spiritual
state and his heart, should be correct. Only then can such work be done. In
this way, he will acquire strength and good results will be achieved. If he is
not spiritually strong, how can he hope to understand Islamic politics,
Islamic economics or other branches of knowledge?”93 The implications of
this statement for political leadership and state building are clear. For
Shahidullah Faridi, Pakistan could never hope to fulfill its promise as an
Islamic republic in the absence of widespread, fundamental moral reform.

Avoiding the glare of the public spotlight, Shahidullah Faridi immersed him-
self in the Sufi path—guiding his loyal followers to a deeper awareness of the
meaning of Islamic piety and virtue by his own personal example.
Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh

Sial Rabbani (1910–1995)
The sacred biography of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani signals a reaffir-
mation of the traditional trajectory—the hagiographical habitus—of Chishti
Indo-Muslim sainthood. At the same time, his personal biography and
worldview were profoundly shaped by the politics of Partition. A khalifa of
Muhammad Zauqi Shah and close friend of Shahidullah Faridi, Wahid
Bakhsh continued the efforts of his predecessors to root the Chishti Sabiri
tradition within the spatial and cultural landscape of postcolonial, independ-
ent Pakistan. The shaykh’s legacy is distinguished by his vast literary output.
His voluminous corpus of books and articles includes translations of classical
Persian malfuzat texts, original commentaries on Sufi practice, and polemical
tracts on Pakistani identity and political life. The shrine of Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani in Allahabad, Pakistan is pictured below in figure 2.2.
Wahid Bakhsh is remembered for his alluring personality, his remarkable
openness and accessibility, and his resolute defense of the Sufi tradition
against its critics and detractors. A recent edition of the silsila’s English
Figure 2.2 The Shrine of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (d. 1995), Allahabad, Pakistan
magazine The Sufi Path offers a portrait of the shaykh through a collection of
short articles, poems, and letters composed by several of his disciples. In a
eulogy to Wahid Bakhsh—the first trace of an incipient, proto-malfuzat—the
magazine’s editors write,
The spiritual guide, renowned scholar, practicing Sufi, saint par excellence, and
spiritual khalifa of Hazrat Zauqi Shah, may God have mercy upon him,
departed from this world after a long illness on 20th Ziqad, 1417 Hijri (April 21,
1995) at the age of eighty-five, leaving behind hundreds of followers at home
and abroad. All those who were blessed with his companionship (suhbat) dur-
ing his lifetime mourn an irreplaceable loss. As one ardent lover of his
remarked, “The world is poorer without him.”
Having authored a large number of books on various facets of Islamic spiri-
tuality, writing thousands of letters to his murids, besides spending endless
hours meeting those visiting him, traveling frequently within the country and
abroad, eating only to live, and spreading kindness, warmth and mercy to old
and young, rich and poor, powerful and helpless, he embodied the highest
traits of the best of Sufis to such a degree that one found full confirmation in
the famous saying, “Sufis in their communities are like the Prophet, God bless
him and grant him salvation, amongst his Companions.”94
The exuberance of this prose encapsulates the reverence and enthusiasm of

Wahid Bakhsh’s disciples. It is also mirrors the premodern paradigm of Indo-
Muslim sainthood—affirming the continuity of the Chishti Sabiri discursive
tradition even in the face of widespread societal transformation. The shaykh
passed away in 1995 after a prolonged battle with prostrate cancer. He is buried
in a shrine complex in his birthplace, the village of Allahabad in the southern
Punjab (sixty miles southwest of the city of Bahawalpur). His recent death,
coupled with the fact that he did not name a direct successor, means that Wahid
Bakhsh’s legacy remains an open book. The details of his personal history have
yet to be inscribed in a sacred biography. Instead, they are preserved in a nexus
of oral narratives. In this complex story-telling network, the shaykh’s words and
deeds are remembered and retold among contemporary Chishti Sabiri disci-
ples. It is safe to assume that in time Wahid Bakhsh’s teachings and life experi-
ences will also be permanently recorded for posterity in a formal hagiography.
But for the moment he remains a saint under construction.

Wahid Bakhsh was born in 1910 in the village of Allahabad into a family of
modest means but deep piety. His parents both came from families with long-
standing ties to the Qadiri Sufi order. They are remembered for their affinity
for Persian poetry, profound love for the Prophet, and strict adherence to
both sunna and shari'a.95 Wahid Bakhsh was raised in a devout household
along with four siblings: an elder brother and sister, and a younger brother
and sister. At the age of fourteen, his father passed away, leaving the young
boys to provide for the family. Recalling the family’s intense spirituality, a
senior male disciple narrated the following miraculous anecdote about the
death of Wahid Bakhsh’s father:
When he [Wahid Bakhsh] was fourteen and his younger brother was just two
and a half, his father died. His father was a great lover of the Holy Prophet. He
would recite Durud Sharif [prayers for the Prophet Muhammad] five thousand
times daily. There is a tradition in the villages that when a person dies his feet are
bound together. His large toes are tied together so the position is maintained,
and then butter is applied to the eyes so that they remain soft. His father had
died, but he suddenly sat up and said, “Why have you tied my toes? What is this
you have put over my head?” He stood up and in the prayer position started
repeating, “Blessings and peace be upon you, of Prophet of God.” He addressed
everyone there, saying, “The Holy Prophet has come, all of you should stand up!”
After repeating this several times, he laid down in the same position [and passed
away]. This was his father, such a spiritual person. (April 29, 2001, Bahawalpur)
For an audience steeped in the hagiographical tropes of the Sufi tradition,

this narrative strikes a powerful, responsive chord. It simultaneously affirms
the intense piety of Wahid Bakhsh’s family lineage and prefigures his own
emergence as a Sufi master.
Education
Like his mentors, Wahid Bakhsh never received formal madrasa training.
Instead, his exposure to and knowledge of the Qur'an, hadith, theology,
Islamic law, and Sufi literature were forged through self-study and direct,
personal experience as a Sufi adept. As a young boy, Wahid Bakhsh attended
government school in Allahabad. He remained there until the tenth grade
when he transferred to Bahawalpur for his secondary and university educa-
tion. Under the patronage of the local Nawab, he was subsequently commis-
sioned in the British Indian Army in 1933. He went on to qualify for studies
at the prestigious British military academy in Dehra Dun, India. This
school—located approximately one hundred and twenty miles northeast of
Delhi—maintained an exclusive quota for the sons of nawabs. Many of its
graduates went on to positions of high rank in the Indian and Pakistani
armies following Partition (interview: April 28, 2001, Lahore). With the sup-
port of the Nawab of Bahawalpur, Wahid Bakhsh enrolled at the academy
from 1935 to 1937. After graduation, he was then transferred back to the
Punjab to serve as a captain in the Bahawalpur State Army.
At this time, Wahid Bakhsh was the epitome of the English gentleman in
dress and behavior: “He represented a typical Indian Army officer, more
proud of his recently acquired British manners and customs than of his own
traditional Islamic heritage.”96 A female member of the shaykh’s family
describes her own memories of Wahid Bakhsh in those days:
He was a real British officer then. My mother used to tell me that in her child-
hood she saw him as a very sophisticated man, with very proper manners. She
even remembered that he had a box with a compartment in it just for his ties.
He was so prim and proper that they always had to be creased. The family was
living in a village, and when he returned from wherever he was posted, he
would come and teach them. They were young girls, my mother, and my
aunt, and he would teach them everything, like table manners. But when he
left the military, he gave away all his clothes, his suits, everything. When he left
the army, he gave up that lifestyle. My mother has told me a lot about this.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wahid Bakhsh’s entire regi-
ment was transferred to Malaysia. His stay there, however, was short-lived.
Charged with insubordination for refusing—on the advice of his shaykh
Muhammad Zauqi Shah—to cut his beard or wear shorts, he was discharged
from military service and returned to India. During wartime, this could have
resulted in the death penalty. Instead—in keeping with the hagiographical
model—it saved Wahid Bakhsh from disaster. According to a short biography
published in The Sufi Path, the Japanese overran the garrison just days after
his departure. The entire regiment was taken as prisoners of war.97 For many
disciples, Wahid Bakhsh’s experiences in Malaysia during the Second World
War foreshadow his future connection with a large following of Malaysian
murids.
Returning to South Asia, Wahid Bakhsh retired from military service alto-
gether in 1946. With the Nawab’s continued support he joined the Civil
Secretariat, serving as the personal assistant to the prime minister of the state
of Bahawalpur. In 1955 he was transferred to the West Pakistan Secretariat in
Lahore where he worked as a civil servant until his retirement in 1968.98
Both personally and professionally, therefore, Wahid Bakhsh was fully
acquainted with the ideology and institutions of the colonial and postcolonial
state. His experiences as a military officer and a civil bureaucrat had a
profound impact on his worldview and political perspective.
Spiritual Training
Wahid Bakhsh’s introduction to Chishti Sabiri Sufism came from the most
unlikely of sources. In 1937, during his stint in the Bahawalpur State Army,
he was introduced to the young English brothers, Shahidullah and Faruq
Ahmad, who were visiting as the royal guests of the Nawab in the midst of
their travels. Before resuming their search for a shaykh, the brothers met a
number of army officers who were duly impressed with their sincerity and
determination. The Sufi Path records this pivotal event in Wahid Bakhsh’s
own spiritual life: “Since the search for a shaykh was the only concern for
these men, they soon cast an awe inspiring influence on those around them
who, suffering from the complex of being a subjected nation, felt pleasantly
surprised and elated on seeing these two men emulating and rigorously prac-
ticing the Islamic prayers. Judging by their sincerity that their’s was the true
cause, Captain Wahid and a few other officers requested of them that once
they found a true shaykh they would also benefit from their efforts and follow
their path.”99
When Shahidullah and Faruq Ahmad returned to Bahawalpur in 1939,

Wahid Bakhsh learned of their experiences with Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi
Shah. Convinced that he too should follow the Chishti Sabiri master, he trav-
eled to Ajmer Sharif. At that time, Zauqi Shah had taken up residence in a
house immediately facing the shrine of the preeminent saint of the
Subcontinent: Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din Chishti. Significantly, this residence at
Ajmer was subsequently named Zauqi Manzil. It remains a central fixture
adjacent to the shrine complex and now serves as a hostel for pilgrims. In
recent years, its caretakers have increasingly distanced themselves from the
silsila, however, and its affiliations with the Chishti Sabiri order now appear
somewhat ambivalent. Even so, the name remains unchanged, and individual
Chishti Sabiri murids who visit the city on pilgrimage (ziyarat) occasionally
stay there. I visited the house in 2001, though I was not able to stay there.
This humble hospice was an important site during the early years of Wahid
Bakhsh’s Sufi apprenticeship.
Wahid Bakhsh received formal initiation on June 24, 1940. In the
following years, he frequently spent time in the company of Zauqi Shah,
taking leave from military duties to travel to Ajmer Sharif during Ramadan
and to attend the annual 'urs celebrations. In between these meetings,
Wahid Bakhsh maintained a strict regimen of prayer, zikr, fasting, and
meditation. This relationship continued after both Zauqi Shah and
Shahidullah moved to Karachi in the wake of Partition. All told, Wahid
Bakhsh’s training in the discipline of suluk lasted eleven years. By all
accounts the relationship between master and disciple was intimate and
intense. Wahid Bakhsh accompanied Zauqi Shah on his final Hajj pilgrim-
age in 1951—a transformative experience he later recorded in detail in his
book, Hajj-i Zauqi.
Wahid Bakhsh’s emergence as a teaching shaykh in his own right came
decades later. According to several senior disciples, he was granted khilafat
during Zauqi Shah’s life. He concealed this fact from the silsila, however,
in deference to Shahidullah Faridi. “He had been granted khilafat,” a
senior disciple told me, “but due to etiquette [adab], he would say,
‘I respect Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi, may God have mercy upon him, as my
shaykh.’ ” These were his words. “I consider him my shaykh because he is
the khalifa-i azam [principal successor] of my shaykh. So I will not make
murids” (April 29, 2001, Bahawalpur). Instead, for twenty-eight years—
from Zauqi Shah’s death in 1951 to Shahidullah’s in 1978—Wahid Bakhsh
remained largely in the background. After his retirement from public office
in 1968, he immersed himself in spiritual devotions. During those years, he
also worked intensely on the translations and writings that were to be
the hallmark of his legacy. Several senior disciples describe Wahid Bakhsh
during that period as withdrawn, intense, and jalali (awe inspiring)—a
far cry from the dynamic and gregarious persona he was to assume as a
full-fledged shaykh.
In 1975 Wahid Bakhsh’s khilafat was publicly confirmed. In typical
Chishti Sabiri fashion, the impetus came from a transformative dream, as a
senior male murid recalls:
The year I became a murid, 1975, Captain Sahab saw a dream. The body of
Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab was there, and people wanted to take it away. But
instead it was brought to his house. He [Wahid Bakhsh] narrated this vision to
Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab who also received some indications. He said, “You
have been granted khilafat by Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab, but you have con-
cealed it. Now the time has come that it should be announced.” So Hazrat
Sahab announced that he [Wahid Bakhsh] was the khalifa of Hazrat Zauqi
Shah Sahab and could take bay'at. I was present at that event. Hazrat Sahab
brought a turban (dastar) and tied it on his [Wahid Bakhsh’s] head. And then
Hazrat Captain Sahab came into his room and everyone came forward and con-
gratulated him. (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur)
This anecdote illuminates once again the fluidity and interconnectedness of

hagiographic narratives within the contemporary silsila. In this case, a private
dream is transformed into public knowledge and then recirculated through a
complex network of storytelling to reaffirm the Chishti Sabiri hagiographical
habitus.
Wahid Bakhsh’s status as a full-fledged teaching shaykh was also subse-
quently confirmed in writing. In his last will and testament, Shahidullah
Faridi writes, “Janab Wahid Bakhsh Sahab, who has been authorized by
Hazrat Shaykh [Zauqi Shah], may God have mercy upon him, has initiated
halqa zikr and guidance in Bahawalpur for which I pray may Allah bestow
blessings and increase. In this context, I counsel that he should spread the
silsila in this place only and not move from place to place as that will affect his
work.”100 Here Shahidullah effectively delineates the southern Punjab as
Wahid Bakhsh’s personal spiritual domain (wilayat). In the following years,
however, the shaykh’s duties Chishti Sabiri master rapidly expanded in scope
and scale.

During the course of my fieldwork, I compiled an expansive catalogue of oral
histories from the disciples of Wahid Bakhsh. Collectively, these accounts offer
unique insights into the dynamics of the master-disciple (pir-murid) relation-
ship. Often conveyed with great emotion, they detail the most intimate
dimensions of people’s spiritual lives. Collectively, these personal narratives
also reveal a detailed portrait of the shaykh’s private and public persona that
both confirms and expands the premodern paradigm of Chishti sainthood.
Like Zauqi Shah and Shahidullah Faridi before him, Wahid Bakhsh never
maintained a permanent hospice (khanaqah). In fact, he rarely stayed in one
place for more than a few weeks. Instead he traveled widely throughout
Pakistan and, on several occasions, to Malaysia in order to administer directly
to the needs of disciples. He also regularly attended the cycle of annual 'urs
celebrations at Sufi shrines. The shaykh’s many devoted followers recall his
remarkable energy and unwavering self-discipline, even when incapacitated
by old age and sickness. The following anecdote from a family member and
senior male disciple encapsulates the shaykh’s personality. It is representative
of stories I heard repeated time and again:
Those of us close to Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh, we were not even aware that the
shaykh followed such a strict routine. He was accessible most of the time. People
used to visit him after evening prayers. He had the capacity to attend to guests
until midnight, and then stay awake the whole night and do all these things
[spiritual exercises]. I personally saw him do that. The first time we went to
Islamabad together [to visit disciples], we started out in the morning. My car
broke down three or four times on the way. It was the month of June, very hot.
We reached there at almost 10 pm. We were so thoroughly exhausted that he
said, “Why don’t we go to bed. Just pray your night prayers. Do the required
[farz] prayers only and go to bed.” It was about midnight, and I went to bed
since I was so tired. After a few minutes I opened my eyes and saw him in med-
itation [muraqaba]. It was only when morning prayers were almost over that he
nudged me and said, “Your prayers are getting away.” I got up. I had a full five
hours of sleep, but I don’t think he had slept at all after taking this whole
journey which had exhausted me. And this was when he was late in his late
seventies! (August 26, 2001, Lahore)
This story, like so many others I heard from the shaykh’s many disciples, illus-
trates Wahid Bakhsh’s indefatigable personality, as well as his unwavering dis-
cipline and piety.
With his disciples, Wahid Bakhsh was tolerant, flexible, and patient.
Murids unanimously laud his abilities as a teacher and communicator. The
shaykh’s keen intellect, openness, and charisma attracted people from a broad
range of social and cultural backgrounds. The shaykh’s inner circle of disciples
was composed largely of middle-class, educated Pakistani urbanites. Yet he
also had a large following among the rural communities surrounding his
hometown of Allahabad. This is reflected in an account of his funeral on April
21, 1995 that appeared in the order’s English language journal The Sufi Path:
“Thousands of people attended Hazrat Sahab’s funeral. Most of us had the
impression that he had known mostly intellectual people, as he was a learned
scholar and theologian, and his mission was obviously to propagate Islam to
educated people at home and abroad. But the villagers said that he would
often sit under a shady tree and listen to their complaints, giving them spiri-
tual and worldly advice and prayers.”101 I personally attended Wahid Bakhsh’s
first death anniversary in Allahabad in 1996 and again during the course of
my fieldwork research in February 2001. On both occasions, these public
events were well attended, drawing hundreds of murids from Pakistan and
abroad, along with large numbers of local villagers and curious onlookers.
Like Zauqi Shah and Shahidullah Faridi before him, Wahid Bakhsh devi-
ated sharply from the traditional paradigm in his openness toward non-
Muslims. He readily accepted non-Muslims as disciples and encouraged
conversion to Islam. In his public lectures and writings, the shaykh frequently
commented on comparative religions, championing Sufism as the most
complete and efficacious mystical path. His numerous books in Urdu and
English were clearly aimed at a broad, international audience. And, in fact, he
attracted both male and female murids from the United States, Europe, and,
in particular, Malaysia. The following account of Wahid Bakhsh’s attitude
toward non-Muslims provides a sense of why so many foreign disciples found
his teaching style attractive:
Captain Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, never asked people about
“religion” per se. The religion of the Sufi is the nearness of Allah. Most
people are now restricted to very specific types of paths. They have not made
religion open, so that everyone may come into it. In his thinking and his
liberal mindedness, he [Wahid Bakhsh] was unique. I’ve never seen another
saint like him. He would allow everyone, even foreigners, a person of any
religion, to sit in his zikrs. Whenever any person who did not belong to his
religion was sitting in his company he was given due respect. (April 28, 2001,
Bahawalpur)
A bibliophile and avid reader, Wahid Bakhsh was conversant in a wide

range of subjects: from classical Islamic scholarship to contemporary
geopolitics, science, and Western academic scholarship on Islam. The
shaykh’s personal library—now housed at the growing tomb complex in
Allahabad—offers tangible proof of his wide-ranging literary interests. The
library also reflects Wahid Bakhsh’s dedication to his disciples. Among vol-
umes of classical tafsir (Qur'an interpretation), fiqh (jurisprudence), and
Sufi poetry in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Saraiki, and Punjabi are thousands of
letters from Wahid Bakhsh’ murids. They are stacked in piles and stored in
large bags. Although the shaykh traveled constantly, much of his interaction
with disciples came in the form of letter writing. A large portion of his daily
routine, in fact, was occupied with this correspondence. As disciples readily
attest, the shaykh’s replies to their frequent inquiries were invariably thor-
ough and prompt. In the words of a Pakistani male murid, “Not one letter
was left unanswered. Even when he was sick with fever, even then he was
writing letters. His wife would get angry with him and say, ‘What are you
doing? You’re spoiling your health. Please have mercy on yourself!’ But he
did not. His family even tried to hide the letters from him when he had can-
cer. As soon as he received a letter, he was not at rest until he could respond
to it” (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur).
During my fieldwork, a number of Chishti Sabiri murids showed me selec-
tions of their lengthy correspondence with the shaykh, letters that they have
carefully preserved and continue to reread. Catered to the particular needs of
each individual, these letters address an immense range of material. This
includes dream interpretation, prescriptions for spiritual practices, and
practical advice on personal and family matters (marriage, divorce, finances,
children’s education, etc.). This communication was particularly important
for Wahid Bakhsh’s foreign disciples. In the absence of direct, face-to-face
interaction with their shaykh, they depended on letters for guidance and
inspiration. According to a senior Malaysian murid,
His letters were all hand written. Sometimes on one page he would write on the
lines, and if he ran short of space he would write on the sides—on the left side,
the right side, at the top of the page, and along the bottom edges. Everywhere!
The most beautiful thing was that every time we sent a letter to him, we knew
that a reply would come within three weeks. And I tell you, every day we would
look forward to the postman coming. I think all the murids here would tell you
that their hearts would be pounding. During those three weeks, each day when
the postman came to the house, we would rush out! (September 30, 2001,
Kuala Lumpur)
Clearly, Wahid Bakhsh was deeply involved with every dimension of his
disciples’ lives. The shaykh transmitted spiritual knowledge as well as practical
worldly advice both through suhbat (direct, interpersonal exchanges) and
the pen.
Married Life
In keeping with the paradigm of an Indo-Muslim Sufi shaykh, Wahid Bakhsh
was also a dedicated family man. The father of four sons and a daughter, he
too viewed the institution of marriage as a central pillars of Sufi spiritual prac-
tice. Much like the wife of Shahidullah Faridi, Wahid Bakhsh’s spouse
Maqsuda Begam was renowned for her own piety, wisdom, and advanced
spiritual status. Known affectionately as Amma Jan, she too was an important
source of guidance for many disciples, especially women. In interviews,
numerous murids spoke of her penchant for dreams and visions of prophets
and saints. They narrated stories of her spiritual encounters with the Prophet
Muhammad, Khizr, Jesus, Baba Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar, Muhammad
Ali Jinnah, Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan, and Zauqi Shah, among others.
According to a senior male disciple, Maqsuda Begam was, in fact, a vital
intermediary for Wahid Bakhsh: “The Holy Prophet, God bless him and
grant him salvation, and all the saints of the silsila were very kind to her, and
they would give her indications concerning the work of her husband. They
would come to her in dreams or in visions, or even in person” (April 30,
2001, Bahawalpur).
Wahid Bakhsh’s relationship with his wife mirrors that of Shahidullah
Faridi. Disciples remember the intensity of respect and affection between
them. Many female murids point to the shaykh’s marriage as the source for his
attitudes toward women in general. A revealing quote from a senior female
disciple captures this dynamic:
Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh, God have mercy upon him, had this capacity to relate to
women’s problems, their insecurities. We felt heard. We felt that he gave us a
status much higher than most men do. We felt equal in a sense. With other pirs
you feel that they’re too awesome, too big, larger than life. But he didn’t appear
to be that way, not while he was alive. It was only when he went away that we
realized the immensity of this man. He just didn’t show it, he lived a very nor-
mal life. I was not there, but I heard about what he said to his wife before he
died. The man was in his eighties. Just before his death he called his sons into
his room, his four sons, and he called his wife. And he told her, “Look. You
have four sons to take care of you, and I have a pension that you can receive.
But if at any stage you feel lonely and insecure, I give you the permission to get
married again.”
Can you imagine this? A man saying that here, in Pakistan? And a Sufi pir?
His wife started laughing, of course, saying, “Who would marry me at this
stage?” But I think he was giving a message to his children and to all of us. He
gave so much importance to women as human beings, that I think women just
naturally flocked to him. They just were drawn towards him. I have not heard
of another example of a pir saying this to his wife. I think it’s tremendous. He
was a very generous man in every sense of the word: intellectually, spiritually,
emotionally. It was his personality that attracted women. It attracted everybody.
(November 22, 2000, Lahore)
Wahid Bakhsh had a disproportionately large number of female disciples—a

notable phenomenon partly explained by his relationship with his own wife.
Maqsuda Begam died in Lahore in 1997 where she was receiving treatment
for cancer. She lies buried near Wahid Bakhsh within the shrine complex in
Allahabad.
Miracles, Ecstasy, and Sobriety

In demeanor, lifestyle, and worldview, Wahid Bakhsh embodied the tradi-
tional paradigm of Chishti sainthood. In both his public writings and private
interactions with disciples the shaykh championed the shari'a and sunna as
the unassailable foundation of Sufi faith and practice. Wahid Bakhsh wrote
extensively on Sufi ritual practice and spiritual training. As chapter 5 will
demonstrate, he was especially known as a passionate defender of the Chishti
tradition of sama'. Yet like his mentor Zauqi Shah the shaykh was careful to
insist on the absolute necessity of maintaining sobriety and ritual propriety.
In keeping with Chishti doctrine, Wahid Bakhsh downplayed the signifi-
cance of saintly miracles. “Miracles relate to a much lower level and are some-
times possible at the hands of the novices and ordinary people having a
strong dose of spirituality by birth,” he wrote. “But the awliya' Allah
[Friends of God] do not like to indulge in miracles because miracles cause
distraction and block the process of progress.”102 Despite this, many of
Wahid Bakhsh’s disciples recall tangible demonstrations of his powers of
insight and knowledge. In the words of a novice male murid, Wahid Bakhsh’s
attitude toward miracles falls within the purview of prophetic precedent:
Normally Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh Sahab would never show that he could per-
form miracles. He said, “Our Prophet Hazrat Muhammad, God bless and grant
him salvation, never performed miracles, so why should I? Who am I to do such
things?” This was his opinion, and rightly so. Despite the fact that I was very
close to him and had a lot of contact with him, I never dared to ask him to per-
form some miracle. He told me that the holy saints can perform miracles, but
they do not. They do not find it important and that is not their motive, to per-
form miracles and impress people. Their goal is simply to be close to Almighty
Allah, to seek His guidance and love. (November 5, 2000, Lahore)
Lifestyle
On a personal level, Wahid Bakhsh is perhaps best remembered for practicing
what he preached. Throughout his life, the shaykh followed a simple, ascetic
lifestyle. Disciples recall that he ate little, slept little, and always lived in very
humble surroundings; his only material possessions of note, they assert, were
his books. Another anecdote about Wahid Bakhsh’s wife provides further evi-
dence of the intense piety and self-discipline that guided the shaykh’s life.
According to a senior male murid,
Captain Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, was very lucky to have a very
sincere wife. She was also a favorite of the saints. When she was newly married,
Captain Sahab needed some money for a good purpose. She offered all of her
ornaments, her jewelry. Those were sold and given for that purpose, but she
missed them. At night she saw a dream of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz [the saint,
Mu'in ad-Din Chishti], may God have mercy upon him, riding on a horse. He
was in the form of a very handsome prince, and wearing a lot of jewelry. Even
his horse was draped in precious jewelry. He questioned her, “Do you want me
or this jewelry?” She said, “I want you.” He replied, “Then everything is all
right. If you want jewelry, I can give you more than this. Why are you sorrow-
ful? If you want me, I am yours. You have decided and now there is no prob-
lem.” (April 29, 2001, Bahawalpur)
Here again a private dream enters into the silsila’s shared hagiographical nar-
rative, serving as a vital pedagogical device. Echoing the story of Ammi Jan—
the wife of Shahidullah—Maqsuda Begam’s dream of the paradigmatic figure
of South Asian Chishti Sufism symbolizes the Sufi adept’s necessary surren-
der of worldly pleasure for spiritual gain.

Wahid Bakhsh spent fifty-five years immersed in the Sufi path. For the last
seventeen years of his life he maintained an especially demanding schedule as
both a teaching shaykh and public writer. Until his death in 1995, he contin-
ued to guide his own large corps of disciples while serving as the silisila’s
chronicler and public mouthpiece. What emerges from Wahid Bakhsh’s col-
lective writings is an image of the shaykh as a public intellectual and polemi-
cist who thought deeply and critically about the challenges of the twentieth
century for South Asian Muslims. Beyond the principal focus on Sufi thought
and practice, his writings ask probing questions about Pakistani identity and
its relationship to Muslim unity. In the face of changing geopolitical realities,
his works seek a balance between loyalty toward the nation and a commit-
ment to a broader, universal Islamic community (umma).
In the minds of prominent disciples, Wahid Bakhsh’s flair for words was
itself another sign of his lofty spiritual status. In the words of a female disci-
ple and family member, his scholarly bent was nothing less than a Divine gift:
The saints are directly guided by the Holy Prophet, God bless him and grant
him salvation. The orders to write come from him directly. Once I remember
Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh told me that when he was very young he went for pil-
grimage to Mecca (umra). He was coming out of the Prophet’s mosque when
somebody came up to him and gave him a pen. From that day he started writ-
ing. What does that indicate? He certainly had the intellect, not everybody can
write. Yet he was especially guided to do this work. (June 17, 2001, Lahore)
Chapter 3 explores Wahid Bakhsh’s public and political life in detail through
a survey of his literary legacy. As we will see, through his writings the shaykh
mounted a concerted defense of Sufi thought and practice within the com-
bative discursive space of contemporary Pakistan.
Conclusion
Sainthood is a profoundly social phenomena, whatever its guise and wherever
its location. Holy persons are born, live, and die, but they are made into
saints. The process of emplotting the lives of pious individuals in sacred biog-
raphies involves a complex and creative act of interpretation. Sainthood is
negotiated in dynamic public discourses and then memorialized in both oral
narratives and hagiographical texts. Every sacred biography is shaped by an
idealized, metahistorical sacred past. At the same, it must respond to local-
ized settings and particularized discourses. In the context of contemporary
Pakistan, the public and private wrangling over Sufi doctrine and practice has
effectively transformed the Sufi saint into “a kind of nodal point where these
political and personal processes come together.”103 Amid a cacophony of
competing voices, the wali Allah—the Sufi “Friend of God”—remains an
enduring, if at times controversial, symbol of Muslim piety in twenty-first-
century South Asia.
The sacred biographies of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi,
and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani conform to the hagiographical habitus of
Indo-Muslim sainthood. Like their premodern Chishti predecessors, these
twentieth-century shaykhs are remembered for the depth of their religious
knowledge, the rigors of their spiritual training, their unwavering commit-
ment to both their nuclear and spiritual families, and, above all, their intense
piety and sanctity. At the same time, the shaykhs’ lives and legacies are indeli-
bly marked by the ideologies and institutions of modernity. Their life experi-
ences provided this trio of twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri masters with a
unique perspective on Sufism and its relation to colonial and postcolonial
structures of authority, knowledge, and power. Unlike their madrasa-trained
'ulama counterparts, these shaykhs were educated in Western-style universities.

They were multilingual, urban, and cosmopolitan and moved fluidly in
multiple cultural complexes and epistemological universes. In the face of
momentous social change, the shaykhs found a way to communicate Sufi
teachings in modern idioms and accommodate Sufi practices to the changing
realities of twentieth-century life in late colonial India and postcolonial
Pakistan. Their collective legacy established a new style of Sufi leadership that
now shapes the Chishti Sabiri order in the twenty-first century.
In many ways, the story of these twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri masters
is not entirely unique. Other shaykhs from multiple Sufi orders also struggled
to adapt tradition to the shifting landscape of postcolonial South Asia. With
his constant travel, polemical writings, and direct political engagement,
Shaykh Jama'at 'Ali Shah (d. 1951), for instance, initiated a similar model of
leadership for the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi order in India. The shaykh actively
engaged in polemical debates and founded an organization called the
Anjuman-i Khuddam as-Sufiyya to “promote a mediatory brand of Sufism
and to meet the attacks of Deobandis, Ahmadis, Ahl-i Hadith and Arya
Samajis.”104 Shaykh Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1878–1955) did much the same
for the Chishti Nizami silsila in India, communicating Islamic Sufism in a
new idiom through his public writings, institution building, and pan-Islamic
activism.105 Yet Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani are distinguished by their concerted efforts to root
Chishti Sabiri history, doctrine, and practice in the contested landscape of
postcolonial Pakistan. Chapter 3 delves deeper into the shaykhs’ voluminous
public writings—a diverse corpus of texts that valorize Sufism as the bedrock
of an imagined Pakistani religious and national identity. This vision continues
to inspire a new generation of Chishti Sabiri adepts who now use the instru-
ments of mass media to communicate Sufi identity to an expanding, global
audience well beyond the order’s traditional South Asian milieu.
Chapter 3
Imagining Sufism: The Publication

of Chishti Sabiri I dentity
I t is often said that the Sufi path transcends the boundaries of discursive
thought and the limits of language itself. Yet Sufi masters past and present
have rarely been at a loss for words. While the tradition’s inner dimensions
may ultimately be ineffable, Sufis have managed to produce a vast and
remarkably diverse range of texts. In today’s South Asia, a broad spectrum of
Sufi works are written, published, and consumed. Communicated in myriad
languages in both poetry and prose, Sufi works explore history, doctrine, and
practice. Others enter the more mundane realm of politics and polemics. As
a comprehensive system of knowledge and practice, Sufism continues to
engage both inward (batin) and the outward (zahir)—the mind and the
body, the individual and society, religion and politics.
This chapter explores the inscription of Chishti Sabiri identity in twentieth-
century South Asia through a study of the literary legacy of three Pakistani
spiritual masters: Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani. From the outset it is important to emphasize that this
trio was, first and foremost, a group of teaching shaykhs. As heirs to a long
and storied Indo-Muslim Sufi teaching tradition, their principal loyalties,
commitments, and identities centered on their primary roles as spiritual men-
tors. Even so, they each recognized the need to articulate the Chishti Sabiri
tradition to a broader audience through public—and polemical—discourse.
Evoking the shari'a-minded, socially engaged, reformist Sufism of their
nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri predecessors, the shaykhs entered the con-
tested public sphere to stake their own claims to Islamic authority and
authenticity. Like the Chishti Sabiri masters, political activists, and Deoband
founders Hajji Imdad Allah and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi before them, they
believed that a Sufi master must be both a paragon of moral virtue and a
public spokesman for his community. In response to the shifting landscape of
the late colonial and early postcolonial eras, Muhammad Zauqi Shah,
Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani each searched for a
resolution to the incongruities and ambiguities of South Asian Muslim
identity. Defending the orthodoxy of Sufi doctrine and practice, these Sufi
masters imagined and articulated an alternative Pakistani identity that was
simultaneously Muslim, modern, and mystic.
In the following pages, I explore the role of twentieth-century Chishti
Sabiri masters as public writers by highlighting the salient themes and key
rhetorical strategies in select texts from their vast literary corpus. While subse-
quent chapters draw on the shaykh’s voluminous writings on Sufi ritual prac-
tice, here I focus more narrowly on their political (and polemical) works. The
bulk of my analysis spotlights two lengthy works by Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani. Together, these texts encapsulate the overarching Chishti Sabiri
project to defend Sufism as the essence of Islamic orthodoxy and a vital
dimension of Pakistani national identity. I conclude with an analysis of the cur-
rent Chishti Sabiri publication campaign in both Pakistan and Malaysia.
Through the translation and publication of important Sufi texts—in particular
the writings of its own shaykhs—the contemporary silsila uses texts to defend
its history and practices from critics. At the same time, Chishti Sabiris aim to
transcend the limits of language, culture, and geography and reach a new,
global audience through the creative use of emergent technologies such as the
Internet. I view these efforts as a striking case study of postcolonial, mass
media Sufism—and yet another example of the Chishti Sabiri order’s dynamic
attempt to forge an alternative modernity in the twenty-first century.
Mass Media Sufism

Although the extensive writings of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah
Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani explore a variety of themes, they are
ultimately concerned with identity—about what it means to be a pious
Muslim, a committed Sufi, and a loyal Pakistani citizen amid the shifting
global landscape of the twentieth century. The articulation of this nexus of
identity is no simple thing, however. Why? Because whatever its focus and
wherever its location, questions of identity are invariably contextual:
enmeshed in complex, interdependent webs of signification rooted in social,
historical, and cultural specificity. To state the obvious, who we are depends
to a great extent on the where and when of our location. Identity is neither a
priori nor inherited. Instead, it is imagined, constructed, and then articulated
in narratives—dynamic assemblages of stories about the nature of the self and
its relation to others. Whether grounded on language, race, ethnicity, or reli-
gion, identity is invariably a fluid construct. It is “relational and incomplete,”
always in process and under construction.1 Individuals and communities are
free to stake their own claims to identity. Yet these narratives have immediate
social consequences once they are communicated in public discursive spaces
to a listening—or reading—audience. As Sudipta Kaviraj notes, “Narrative is
not for all to hear, for all to participate in to an equal degree. It has a self in
which it originates, a self which tells the story. But that self obviously is not
Imagining Sufism 91
soliloquizing or telling a story to itself. It implies an audience, a larger self

towards which it is directed, and we can extend the idea to say that the trans-
action of a narrative creates a kind of narrative contract.”2 In short, the
expression of identity—whether personal or collective—constitutes a public,
often political act.
From the printing press to cyberspace, the invention, exploitation, and
dissemination of mass media technologies have radically transformed the way
in which identity is experienced and expressed. Numerous scholars have
explored the role of mass media in the formation of networks—whether
social, political, or religious—of community. In his groundbreaking work
Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson documents the convergence of
print technology and capitalism in the rise of the nation—an “imagined polit-
ical community” bound together by a common “print language.”3 Expanding
on Anderson’s conclusions, Armando Salvatore argues that the pervasive shift
in media intervention marks “a deeper change in the very conditions of
production, diffusion and consumption of discourse.” He sees this as a
“transformation in the ‘episteme’ of an age,” nothing less than a “type of
change that potentially affects every discursive formation and influences the
modalities themselves of defining the objects of knowledge.”4 This dynamic
continues in the early twenty-first century as new forms of media continue to
reconfigure the rules of economic consumption, social interaction, political
discourse, and religious practice.
In South Asia, new media technologies have played a central role in
contestations over the relationship between religious and national identity. In
the twilight of the colonial age, India and Pakistan—and later Bangladesh—
were first imagined, and then delineated, inscribed, and institutionalized.
New passports and redrawn boundaries on maps were merely the final step in
a prolonged and often tumultuous process of imagining the nation. Print
media, radio, television, film, and most recently the Internet have all been
used to reify and reinforce linguistic, religious, and communal divisions. In
the postcolonial era, technologies have proved equally important in trans-
forming imagined communities into the concrete political institutions and
territorial boundaries that now divide the Subcontinent into separate
nations.5
South Asia’s diverse Muslim communities have long recognized the power
of mass media as a tool to communicate their visions of religious identity.
Print technology was not established in the Islamic world and among South
Asian Muslims until the nineteenth century, 400 years after Gutenberg’s
invention of moveable type facilitated the dissemination of Martin Luther’s
German translation of the Bible. The explosion of religious publications
in multiple formats and venues brought a new dynamism to Muslim civil
society. As historian Francis Robinson notes, “By the 1820’s, Muslim
reformist leaders in the Indian subcontinent were busily printing tracts. By
the 1830s the first Muslim newspapers were being printed. By the 1870s,
editions of the Qur'an, and other religious books, were selling in tens of
thousands. In the last thirty years of the century, over seven hundred
newspapers and magazines in Urdu were started. All who observed the world
of printing noted how Muslims understood the power of the press.”6
This sudden influx of bibliomania among South Asia’s Muslims was largely
a defensive response. Muslim communities generated their own publications
as a weapon in the defense of the faith against the polemical attacks of such
Hindu reformists groups such as the Arya Samaj, as well as the campaigns of
British colonial administrators and Christian missionaries. Diverse groups of
Muslim scholars, intellectuals, and ideologues eventually capitalized on mul-
tiple media resources to forward their own agendas. This included Barelwis,
Deobandis, Ahl-i Hadith, various Shi'a groups, the followers of Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, and, in time, the Jama'at-i Islami. Engaging their rivals head-
on, each of these movements published voluminous translations of the
Qur'an, hadith, and premodern texts. They also wrote and disseminated
original tracts in Urdu—from the legal opinions of Muslim jurists ( fatwas) to
political treatises—in an effort to voice their own messages to the reading
public at large.
The cumulative effects of this barrage of publications were wide-ranging.
The polemical “pamphlet wars” of the nineteenth century that pitted
Hindus, Christians, and rival Muslim groups against one another cemented
Urdu as the official language of Muslim discourse and identity. In the
decades that followed, the expansion of mass media technologies spurred a
marked rise in the prevalence of Islamist scripturalist movements, fostered the
internationalization of the Muslim community, and encouraged the democ-
ratization of religious knowledge as new religious intellects entered the
public sphere to challenge the traditional authority of the 'ulama.7 Once
begun, the transformative impact of mass media on South Asian Muslim
consciousness, epistemology, and politics was profound and enduring.
In postcolonial South Asia, the nation-state has never held a monopoly on
the use of mass media. Instead, in competition—and at times conflict—with
the state, a broad spectrum of political actors has utilized media technologies
to broadcast their own discrete messages and claims to authority. As
Eickelman and Anderson note, this mirrors a trend found throughout the
contemporary Muslim world: “This combination of new media and new con-
tributors to religious and political debates fosters an awareness on the part of
all actors of the diverse ways in which Islam and Islamic values can be created
and feeds into new senses of a public sphere that is discursive, performative
and participative, and not confined to formal institutions recognized by state
authorities.”8 The increasing volume and intensity of public debate has
further decentered Islamic religious authority in South Asia. In an often
combative competition over the mantle of Islamic orthodoxy, mass media
technologies now serve a broad spectrum of religious leaders who all claim to
speak for Islam.
Sufis have added their own voices to the din of Muslim social discourse.
Drawing on both Arab and Ottoman evidence, Muhsin Mahdi has demon-
strated that aside from state governments Sufis were in fact the main patrons
of printing in Muslim countries during the nineteenth century.9 In South
Imagining Sufism 93
Asia, Sufi orders eagerly embraced the print revolution, adopting a variety of
media as a mouthpiece to disseminate their messages. These ranged from
pamphlets and glossy texts to periodicals, journals, and, more recently, digi-
tal Web sites. Contemporary Sufi publications cover an equally expansive
range of genres. Vernacular translations of “classical” Arabic and Persian Sufi
texts, for instance, are now commonplace. In today’s Pakistan, Urdu transla-
tions of premodern Sufi masters—Sarraj, Qushayri, Suhrawardi, and Rumi—
are readily found on the shelves of local libraries, bookstores, and in the stalls
of Urdu bazaars. The writings of contemporary Sufi leaders are also widely
available in a variety of formats—from discourses, informal lectures, essays,
and biographies to practical manuals on everything from prayer and medita-
tion practices to the use of talismans and charms for healing purposes. As
Ernst argues, since many of these publications are available commercially this
trend amounts to “a mass marketing of Sufism on an unprecedented scale.”10
Mass media publications proved to be a highly effective medium for dis-
seminating the messages of Sufi shaykhs to a broader public. The widespread
distribution of inexpensive books to middle-class consumers opened Sufi
knowledge to a vast audience—well beyond the privileged few with access to
manuscripts or the intimate, word of mouth exchanges with a Sufi master.
These publications gave certain Sufi masters unprecedented fame and influ-
ence. The monthly magazine Risala-yi anwar al-sufiyya [Magazine of
Sufi Illuminations], for example, played a vital role in the propagation
and popularity of the teachings of the Naqshbandi master, Jama'at 'Ali Shah
(d. 1951).11 These publications did more than alter the profile of individual
masters, however; they fundamentally altered the makeup of both interper-
sonal relations and Sufi institutional life. In effect, Sufism was transformed
from an esoteric community based exclusively on the oral instruction
between master and disciple into a public institution. With new confidence
and determination, Sufi orders defended their own traditions and identities
against the polemical attacks of European Orientalists, Islamists, and mod-
ernists alike. As Carl Ernst notes, “The publicizing of Sufism through print
and electronic media has brought about a remarkable shift in the tradition.
Now advocates of Sufism can defend their heritage by publishing refutations
of fundamentalist or modernist attacks on Sufism. In this sense, the media
permit Sufism to be contested and defended in the public sphere as one ide-
ology alongside others.”12 In the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries,
the Chishti Sabiri order has been particularly adept at appropriating multiple
forms of mass media to communicate and defend its own interpretation of
Islamic tradition, piety, and practice.
Chishti Sabiri S HAYKHS as Public Writers

As modern Pakistani Sufi shaykhs, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah
Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani combined spiritual pedagogy and
practice with literary acumen in order to ground Chishti Sabiri Sufism in a
distinctly modern idiom. Together they produced an eclectic range of texts,
written in both Urdu and English. In them, the shaykhs valorized Chishti
Sabiri identity as a defense against the tradition’s Muslim critics and a barrier
against Western cultural encroachment and political hegemony. Addressing a
diverse Pakistani and international audience, they employed technical and
scientific vocabulary in combination with mass media to demonstrate the
enduring relevance of the doctrinal teachings and ritual practices at the heart
of Sufi identity.
In all this the shaykhs were not unique. Other notable twentieth-century
South Asian Sufi masters have pursued similar reformist agendas—the
Chishti Nizami masters Sayyid Mehr Ali Shah (1856–1937) and Khwaja
Hasan Nizami (1878–1955), for example, as well as the Naqshbandi
activist, Pir Jama'at 'Ali Shah (1841–1951).13 The combined efforts of these
twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri leaders, however, constitute a marked devi-
ation from the precedent of their premodern predecessors who largely
avoided urban spaces and networks of royal patronage in favor of a life of spir-
itual quietism and withdrawal in rural locales. As Ernst and Lawrence note,
by accepting the “challenge of mobilizing the same resources of past genera-
tions” the shaykhs entered the public sphere to articulate “creative responses
to new realities.”14
The contemporary Chishti Sabiri writing project envisions an alternative
religious identity with Sufism as the heart of Islamic orthodoxy. The very fact
that the shaykhs felt compelled to publicly defend Sufism’s religious creden-
tials reflects the increasing politicization of Islam in postcolonial South Asia.
For South Asian Muslims, the twentieth century marks the culmination of
what historian Marshall Hodgson calls the “Great Western Transmutation”
(hereafter, the GWT)—the bureaucratization, rationalization, technicaliza-
tion, and systemization of every dimension of human life. In the face of such
momentous social changes, Muslims were forced to reevaluate their own
history, faith, and practices.15 They did so in remarkably diverse ways. As we
have seen, through both education and personal experience this trio of
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs was intimately acquainted with the institutions and ide-
ology of the British colonial state. Through a range of essays, articles, jour-
nals, and books, they each directly and forcefully address this legacy. Their
numerous Urdu translations of premodern Persian malfuzat texts highlight
the essential continuity of the Chishti Sabiri tradition. At the same time, the
shaykh’s own original works attempt to accommodate Sufism to contemporary
life while rethinking key categories of postcolonial modernity.
Throughout their writings, the shaykhs stake a middle ground amid the
range of Indo-Muslim responses to the GWT.16 Like a host of other Muslim
modernists, they embrace science, educational reform, and independent legal
reasoning (ijtihad), recognizing the pressing need to adapt to social change.
The shaykhs also champion egalitarianism, civil liberties, and socioeconomic
justice as essential features of the Qur'anic worldview. Yet they remain wary
of Euro-American cultural and political hegemony and warn against the
wholesale adoption of Western political models of liberal democracy. In line
with 'ulama traditionalists, the shaykhs view the Qur'an, Prophetic sunna,
Imagining Sufism 95
and shari'a as the indispensable foundation of Islamic piety and practice.

They challenge the 'ulama’s exclusivist claims to interpretation, however.
Islamic authority and authenticity, they assert, are ultimately rooted in
ma'rifa (the direct, intuitive knowledge experienced through Sufi practice)
rather than 'ilm (the rational, discursive book knowledge taught in tradi-
tional madrasas). Like their Islamist counterparts, these Chishti Sabiri mas-
ters reject the ideology of secularization, viewing Islam as a comprehensive
way of life. At the same time, the shaykhs critique the Islamists’ exclusivist and
literal interpretations of scripture, and they decry Islamists’ narrow emphasis
on Islam’s political and ideological dimensions. Chishti Sabiris lament the
spread of Wahhabi doctrine and the rise of sectarian identities and vehe-
mently defend Sufi doctrine and ritual practices against all forms of criticism.
Maneuvering between these divergent schools of thought demands a remark-
able degree of flexibility and creative adaptation—a dynamic approach that
itself belies the Orientalist portrait of contemporary Sufism as an intransi-
gent, ossified relic.
In their critique of colonial and postcolonial structures of power and
knowledge, the Chishti Sabiri shaykhs alternatively reject, appropriate, and
manipulate certain key categories of modernity. Taken as a whole, the order’s
writing project “does not necessarily represent a rejection of modernity per se,
but can be seen as a reconstruction of modernity according to Islamic mod-
els and motifs.”17 This hybridity is clearly evident in the shaykhs’ portrayal of
Sufism’s public and private dimensions. Their writings constantly emphasize
Sufism’s enduring relevance as the very essence of Islamic orthodoxy. Sufism
is a vital component of Indo-Muslim identity, they insist, that impacts every
dimension of social life—from moral behavior and aesthetics to social and
political ethics. At times, however, the shaykhs also characterize Sufism as a
distinctly private matter—a closed, interpersonal network of knowledge and
practice. This balancing act allows them to distinguish Sufi tradition from
both the official Islam of the state and that of their Islamist counterparts. The
shaykhs view both as one-dimensional and essentially political ideologies.
Muhammad Qasim Zaman traces a similar dynamic in his discussion of
the contemporary 'ulama in Pakistan. As Zaman illustrates, “The very effort
to preserve Islam ‘unchanged’ in a rapidly changing world involves consid-
erable redefinition of what Islam means, where to locate it in society, and
how best to serve its interests. For the Pakistani 'ulama one way to serve
such interests is to define Islam as occupying a distinct sphere in society and
to equate the autonomy of this sphere and their own authority and identity
with a textually embodied religious tradition.”18 Chishti Sabiri shaykhs
assert a distinct, autonomous sphere of their own. They locate this space
within an interpersonal network of Sufi teaching tradition. This network
of knowledge and practice is communicated via the master-disciple relation-
ship and embodied in ritual practices. Much like their 'ulama counterparts,
these Chishti Sabiri masters are primarily concerned with preserving
tradition. To do so, they define Sufism as a totalizing system—a multifaceted
worldview and a comprehensive way of life. In essence, the shaykhs’ teachings
characterize Sufism as a personal spiritual discipline experienced in a

communal teaching network, a comprehensive moral and ethical system,
and, most significantly, an essential component of South Asian Muslim
history and Pakistani national identity.
Pakistan is front and center in the contemporary Chishti Sabiri imagination.
Indeed, Muhammad Zauqi, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
were ardent Pakistani nationalists. They were unwavering in their support
for an independent homeland for South Asian Muslims and their optimism
for Pakistan’s future. This too distinguishes them from their Islamist and
'ulama peers, many of whom resisted the independence movement and
lamented Partition because they feared it would further divide and weaken
South Asia’s minority Muslim communities. In keeping with the famous
hadith, “Love of the homeland is part of one’s faith” (hubb al-watan min al-
iman), the shaykhs’ writings sacralize Pakistan as nothing less than a Divine
reward. At the same time, they define the silsila as a sacred moral community
antecedent to the nation-state. For these Chishti Sabiri masters, Sufi identity
is rooted in genealogy, communicated in the intimate connection between
master and disciple, and performed in ritual practices. Resisting co-optation
by the postcolonial state and defending the Chishti Sabiri tradition in public
polemical debate, the shaykhs champion Sufism as the enduring bedrock of
Indo-Muslim identity.
Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah drew on his personal experiences and
expertise as a journalist to inscribe a new vision of twentieth-century Chishti
Sabiri identity. Through education and profession, he developed an affinity
for language and an appreciation for the power of print, both of which
he used to voice his own opinions on contemporary political affairs.
Significantly, Zauqi Shah’s training as a journalist places him in the company
of numerous twentieth-century Muslim reformists who also employed their
acumen for the written word to forward political agendas, from Muhammad
'Abduh (1849–1905) to Mawdudi (1903–1979). As a young man in his late
twenties, Zauqi Shah worked for four separate Urdu newspapers in Lahore.
Between 1904 and 1906, he served as the editor of a weekly English
language newspaper al-Haq, published first in Hyderabad, Sindh, and subse-
quently in Karachi. During this time, he was appointed to cover the Prince of
Wales’ tour of India. As one of six correspondents from the Indian Muslim
press, he traveled with the prince’s entourage from November 1905 to
March 1906, writing a series of articles on various social and political issues.
From August 1907 to February 1908, Zauqi Shah served a final stint as the
editor of another newspaper in Karachi called al-Wakil, before resigning to
embark on a series of independent business ventures.19
After his formal initiation into the Chishti Sabiri order in Lucknow in
1914, Zauqi Shah abandoned his career as a journalist in order to immerse
himself entirely in Sufi practice. His role as spiritual teacher, however, was
profoundly colored by his earlier professional experience. Throughout his
long life, Zauqi Shah continued to write. In a wide-ranging series of essays,
articles, and books—published in numerous forums in both Urdu and
Imagining Sufism 97
English—he wrote on Sufi history, doctrine, and ritual practice. Sirr-i

dilbaran [The Heart-Ravishing Secret], a comprehensive encyclopedia of
Sufi terminology, is undoubtedly his magnum opus. Begun in Peshawar in
1923, this lexicon, written in Urdu, was compiled over a number of years.
The text was first published by the silsila in 1951 and is now in its fifth
edition (1985).20 Zauqi Shah also founded a Sufi magazine titled Anwar al-
Quds [The Lights of Holiness], published in Bombay from October 1925 to
February 1927.21 Most remarkably, the shaykh experimented with a new form
of literary expression in Bada u Saghir [The Wine and the Cup]. Set in colo-
nial Bombay, this unusual Urdu spiritual novel centers on a lengthy dialogue
between the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his queen, Mumtaz Mahal.
The entire story is described as a metaphor for the states and stations of the
Sufi spiritual path. The book was inspired by a trip to the tomb of Qazi
Mahmud Darya'i in Ahmedabad in 1919 where Zauqi Shah witnessed three
miracles. According to Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, “This shrine confers the bless-
ings of poetry. Yet he [Zauqi Shah] used to say, ‘I am not a poet, so for that
reason I began to write a novel, Bada u Saghir.’ He was overpowered with
such enthusiasm that he continued writing [the novel] while seated on a
bullock cart. When he ran out of paper, he began writing on scraps of news-
paper.”22 Though an anomaly in his corpus, Bada u Saghir is certainly Zauqi
Shah’s most intriguing literary contribution.
Zauqi Shah’s enthusiasm for the written word was well suited to the
heightened atmosphere of late colonial India. Through his writings, he trans-
formed himself into a public apologist for Sufism. His works can be seen as
an attempt to counter the discourses of British Orientalism and Islamist
movements on the one hand and the anti-Muslim polemics of Christian
missionaries and Hindu nationalists on the other. The shaykh was especially
critical of the ideology of Wahhabism and the politics of the Jama'at-i Islami.
He even wrote a lengthy article critiquing the views of Mawlana Mawdudi.23
Zauqi Shah often highlighted his own spiritual connections with Hajji Imdad
Allah al-Muhajir Makki and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, founders of the
Deoband madrasa. Yet he rejected the scriptural reformism of the movement
that championed their legacy while erasing their Chishti Sabiri roots.
Throughout his writings, Zauqi Shah loudly asserts the orthodoxy of Sufism.
In an article entitled “Sufism”—first published in a journal The Islamic
Review in London in 1933—he writes,
It is wrongly supposed that Sufism has nothing to do with Islam. In fact, it is the
life and soul of Islam. It is really Islam in its higher and practical aspects. It is
action and the consequent realization. It is a process of purification of the soul. It
is not an idle and unproductive philosophy. It is not a set of fresh beliefs in any
way different from the teachings of Islam. It is not a series of secretive teachings
of any fantastic nature. It is work on proper lines, and as a result of such work and
the consequent purification of the soul, it is enlightenment and realization.24
Zauqi Shah’s rhetorical defense of Sufism often involves a highly polemical

engagement with other religious traditions. In numerous articles, the shaykh
asserts the supremacy of Sufism over other mystical paths. While living in
Hyderabad, Deccan, Zauqi Shah began writing an ambitious book in Urdu
titled Kutub-i samawi par ek nazar [A Glance at the Heavenly Books]. In it
he planned to compare the sacred scriptures of Christianity, Judaism, and
Hinduism with the message of the Qur'an. Though he completed the sec-
tions on the Torah and the Gospels, his analysis of the Vedas and the Qur'an
were never finished. Nevertheless, extracts from the manuscript were pub-
lished in Tarjuman al-Qur'an [Interpreter of the Qur'an], a journal owned
and edited by Mawlana Mawdudi, the famous Islamist ideologue and
founder of the political party, Jama'at-i Islami.25 This seems a curious choice
given the shaykh’s dim view of his Islamist counterpart. Yet as Ernst and
Lawrence argue, “Despite his opposition to Maududi’s authoritarianism,
Zauqi essentially agreed with Maududi’s analysis of the crisis facing Indian
Muslims; both felt that reviving Islam through political means was absolutely
necessary, but they differed considerably in their interpretation of what Islam
actually meant.”26 In Zauqi Shah’s view, the innermost dimensions of Islamic
spiritual truth were accessible only to those who accepted the discipline and
rigors of the Sufi path.
The most controversial of Zauqi Shah’s polemical remarks on religion are
found in New Searchlight on the Vedic Aryans.27 This pamphlet was originally
published in the Delhi Urdu newspaper Manshur in installments on June 20,
June 27, and July 4, 1943. An English version was simultaneously published
in the Allahabad paper Onward on June 14 and June 21. In this brief but
highly charged text, Zauqi Shah directly responds to an article “The Arctic
Home of the Vedas” written in 1903 by the ardent Hindu national politician,
Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The shaykh marshals archeological, scholarly,
and scriptural evidence to deduce that both the Aryan and Dravidian races
were originally Semitic tribes from the Middle East. Zauqi Shah summarizes
his argument in a discourse recorded in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq:
In New Searchlight on the Vedic Aryans I have made it clear that the Hindus and
Jews have a common origin. Their customs and habits are identical. Notice how
the Jews have harassed the people in Europe and America with their tricks, and
the Hindus have fanned the flames of discord and corruption in India. The First
and Second World Wars were both caused by the Jews. The real reason is that
these people are great capitalists and owners of immense weapons factories.
They actually want war so that the demand for their weapons increases and their
business progresses. This is the extent of the savagery and vileness of their
thinking. You will see, these people will also be the cause of World War Three.28
Zauqi Shah’s polemic needs to be understood in the context of the con-

frontational communal politics of the late colonial period. In the wake of the
Second World War, the shaykh was profoundly concerned about the future of
India’s Muslims in the face of an increasingly aggressive Hindu nationalism.
He responds to attacks against Indo-Muslim civilization by denigrating
Hindu history and identity and then conflating it with a vision of a parallel
global Jewish conspiracy. As Ernst and Lawrence note, “Here Zauqi Shah
Imagining Sufism 99
regrettably opened the door to acceptance of notorious anti-Semitic propa-

ganda, such as the apocryphal ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ within the
Chishti order.”29 These attitudes have indeed continued. In his book
Reactivization of Islam, for example, Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani echoes this
rhetoric, quoting extensively from the “Protocols” in a chapter entitled
“Glimpses of a Zionist Conspiracy.”30 At times, Chishti Sabiri shaykhs have
characterized attacks against Islam—and Sufism in particular—as part of a
much larger anti-Muslim conspiracy.
Zauqi Shah’s writings went hand in hand with his lifelong commitment to
political activism. The shaykh was a fervent supporter of the campaign for an
independent state for the Muslims of South Asia. He attended the first meet-
ing of the Muslim League in Karachi in 1907 and formally joined the organ-
ization in Ajmer in 1940. He subsequently was elected vice president of the
League’s district and provincial administration and served as the head of the
Ajmer Sirat Committee. As a member of the All India Council, Zauqi Shah
attended the Muslim League’s annual session in Madras on April 8, 1941,
and he remained active in the organization until his death a decade later. His
myriad activities resulted in a broad network of political contacts and per-
sonal friendships. Between 1937 and 1947, the shaykh exchanged a series of
letters in English with Pakistan’s future leader Muhammad 'Ali Jinnah
(1876–1948).31 This lengthy and lively correspondence encompasses a wide
variety of topics. In these letters, for example, Zauqi Shah documents his
involvement with the Muslim League, rails against Gandhi and the Congress
Party, warns Jinnah against Hindu political designs, and makes an impas-
sioned plea for Muslim unity. The shaykh concludes a lengthy letter written
on February 25, 1939: “As a Sufi, let me assure you that, in spite of all their
faults and weaknesses, the Muslims are going to have a brilliant future. My
recent Sufistic revelations fully confirm what I have been feeling intuitively
for some time—that, before long, Islam will become the only dominating
force in the world. But that does not mean that the Muslims will not have to
make big sacrifices. Of course, no sacrifice is too great for it. So, let us take
courage and dash on. The present happenings in the world only encourage
us to push forward.”32 Despite the ambiguities and dangers of the times,
Zauqi Shah maintained a unwavering optimism about the future of South
Asia’s Muslims.
Amid his political work, incessant travels, and spiritual duties as a teaching
shaykh, Zauqi Shah’s writing continued unabated. Even as his health failed,
he published a series of articles in Urdu language and English language news-
papers. This included numerous essays that appeared in the Karachi paper
Dawn in 1945 and 1946, as well as a regular column in the short-lived
English language weekly The People’s Voice, which ran for several months
beginning in December 1947.33 Zauqi Shah summarized his political views in
a short Urdu pamphlet titled Islam, Pakistan aur jamhuriyat [Islam, Pakistan
and Democracy] published in 1950. A number of his more political writings—
including his reciprocal correspondence with Jinnah—were eventually com-
piled and published by the Chishti Sabiri order in 1949 in a volume entitled
Muzamin-i Zauqi [The Articles of Zauqi]. An English version of this book

was reprinted in Lahore in 1998 under the title Letters of a Sufi Saint to
Jinnah. Collectively, these texts cover a wide range of contemporary issues,
both local and global. They include lengthy diatribes against Western civi-
lization, liberal democracy, modernity, and secularization. Other key themes
that permeate Zauqi Shah’s political works are Islam’s role as a comprehen-
sive system, the potential of Pakistan as an Islamic state, and the imminent
dangers of Pakistan’s internal discord.
Among today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples, Zauqi Shah is remembered for
both his advanced spiritual status and political clout as an early Pakistani
nationalist. In the words of one young Pakistani disciple, the shaykh’s exam-
ple inspired his successors as well: “I think the silsila and the shaykhs have
definitely been patriotic. They were Pakistani nationalists, all of them. In the
Pakistan movement, the religious political parties were largely against the cre-
ation of Pakistan. It was more the shaykhs, the Sufis who supported it. I know
that in the silsila, Hazrat Shah Shahidullah, Wahid Bakhsh Sahab, all of them
were extremely pro-Pakistan. Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab was living at a time
when he simply had to take sides [on political issues]. And I think he took the
side that was destined to succeed” (March 22, 2001, Islamabad).
In the introduction to Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
pushes this argument even further. In his alternative history, Zauqi Shah is
eulogized as the true spiritual founder of Pakistan. In his words, “This mat-
ter is not generally known by the people, but the elect know it: while Qaid-i
Azam [Muhammad 'Ali Jinnah] was the outward founder of Pakistan, Hazrat
Muhammad Zauqi Shah was its inward, spiritual founder. The fact is that
from ancient times Chishti saints have played a major role in the conquest of
Hindustan . . . That is why Hazrat, may God have mercy upon him, often
used to say, ‘Hindustan is the inheritance of the Chishtis.’” 34 As this retelling
of Indo-Muslim history suggests, the Chishti Sabiri historical project deviates
radically from that of its Islamist counterparts. Here Sufi saints are anything
but marginalized, navel-gazing mystics. Instead, Chishti Sabiri masters are
positioned at the forefront of both religious and political life. In this coun-
terpolemic, Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah continues the legacy of his spir-
itual ancestors—guiding and sanctifying the evolution of South Asian Islam
from the eleventh-century Delhi Sultanate through the birth of the “Land of
the Pure” (Pakistan) in 1947.
Zauqi Shah’s successors, Shahidullah Faridi and Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani, never matched their predecessor’s political activism. Neither of
them was as publicly vocal nor as openly involved in politics as their shaykh.
Both, however, followed Zauqi Shah’s example by taking up the pen. As
teachers, writers, and publicists, they were active in the efforts to articulate
and disseminate the silsila’s identity through the mass media. As a result of
their efforts, there is a remarkable continuity of practice, teaching style, and
public posturing in the twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri order.
According to the silsila’s contemporary biographers, it was Shahidullah
Faridi who inherited the Chishti Sabiri prerogative for the spiritual and
Imagining Sufism 101
political protection of the Subcontinent in the wake of Partition. Wahid

Bakhsh makes this explicit: “After Hazrat Mawlana Zauqi Shah, may God
have mercy upon him, his principal successor [khalifa-i a'zam], Hazrat Shah
Shahidullah Faridi, may God have mercy upon him, received the political
charge of India. The people of spiritual insight know well the apparent
[zahiri] and hidden [batini] work he carried out for the politics of the
country.”35 Shahidullah Faridi was renowned for his intense piety, powerful
personality, and deep erudition. Given his enduring reputation as an accom-
plished Chishti Sabiri master, however, it is somewhat surprising the shaykh
wrote far less than either Zauqi Shah or Wahid Bakhsh. More importantly,
none of the shaykh’s works expressly engage political matters. As I suggested
previously, it is likely that Shahidullah’s personal background as an
Englishman and Muslim convert may have contributed to this reluctance to
explicitly address the political realm. Instead, his writings focus exclusively on
spiritual matters, from Sufi history and doctrine to the nuances of ritual prac-
tice. Though he was fluent in Urdu and communicated with the bulk of his
followers in their native tongue, most of Shahidullah’s writings were pub-
lished as essay compilations in English. This includes Inner Aspects of Faith,
Everyday Practice in Islam, Spirituality in Religion, and The Moral Message of
God and His Prophet.36 Beyond his own literary efforts, Shahidullah played a
central role in continuing and expanding the silsila’s publication campaign.
In his last will and testament, the shaykh emphasizes the vital importance of
the order’s books and directs several senior murids to carry on with this
important work.37
Though never as overtly political as his predecessor, Shahidullah remained
deeply concerned with Pakistan’s survival and development. His Urdu spiri-
tual discourses, in fact, contain selective but insightful lectures on a broad
range of relevant political topics. Malfuzat-i shaykh, for example, details the
shaykh’s views on Islamic political theory and the support of Sufis for just
political rule, secularism in Europe, hudud punishments and social reform,
Shi'ism and sectarian politics, and the spiritual duties of jihad.38 The shaykh’s
own disciples recall that Shahidullah was on occasion extremely frank about
his opinions of Pakistan’s political leaders and their policies, particularly after
the emergence of a narrow, Arab-centric Islamism under General Zia al-Haq.
Yet to this day, Shahidullah is remembered more for his personal piety,
charisma, and advanced spiritual status than for his contributions as a writer.
A senior Pakistani female disciple draws an explicit parallel with the Prophet
Muhammad to explain Shahidullah’s pedagogical style:
This is what I feel about my shaykh. Studying at Oxford, with such perfection in
English, he could have written much more for the Western world. I have often
thought about these things, because many people used to ask me, “Has he writ-
ten any books?” Of course, his book Inner Aspects of Faith is wonderful. But
you know what I feel? He was a replica of our Prophet, God bless him and grant
him salvation. Our Prophet was an illiterate man. He had not written a word.
People would simply come and sit with him and get converted to Islam. This
was Islam in those days. With Hazrat Sahab [Shahidullah Faridi] it was the
same. I remember that when newcomers would come to meet him for the first
time, they would sit with him. Muslims and non-Muslims too. The moment
they would sit with him, they would be quiet and they would not dare utter a
word. I think that was the presence that was transferred to him from the
Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation. That is why he didn’t write
that many books. (June 17, 2001, Lahore)
This is a statement that I heard repeated, in various iterations, during my

interviews. It suggests that Shahidullah Faridi, like the Prophet Muhammad
before him, was a true spiritual master who inspired anyone who met him
through the sheer force of his personal charisma and piety.
The Writings of Shaykh Wahid

Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
Following Partition, it was Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani who clearly emerged
as the Chishti Sabiri order’s principal spokesman and public ideologue. With
boundless energy, he composed a voluminous corpus of texts, wide-ranging
in scope and scale, written in both Urdu and English. The shaykh published
numerous Urdu translations of classical Persian biographical texts, including
the discourses of Farid al-Din Ganj-i Shakkar, Maqam-i Ganj Shakkar;
Shaykh 'Abd ar-Rahman Chishti’s malfuzat, Mirat al-asrar [Mirror of
Secrets]; and al-Hujwiri’s famous tome titled Kashf al-mahjub [The
Unveiling of the Concealed].39 Wahid Bakhsh also wrote numerous original
treatises on ritual practice, as well as overtly polemical pieces in defense of
the Chishti Sabiri tradition. Many of these works are now easily found in the
Urdu bookstores of Karachi and Lahore. Wahid Bakhsh clearly inherited
the literary mantle from his mentor. In fact, Zauqi Shah’s impact is palpable
in the content and style of his writings. According to a senior Pakistani
murid, this was all by design: “Zauqi Shah started with pen and paper
and finished with pen and paper, and Wahid Bakhsh carried on the work of
his shaykh. He was assigned this work by Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab”
(December 10, 2000, Karachi).
In the following pages I explore two key texts written by Wahid Bakhsh
that together encapsulate the essential themes and rhetorical strategies of the
entire Chishti Sabiri writing project: Islamic Sufism and The Magnificent
Power Potential of Pakistan. Together, these eclectic works offer a compre-
hensive rethinking—an alternative vision—of Sufism’s place in Islamic
history and contemporary Pakistani identity. They each combine local and
global discourses to argue for Sufism’s orthodoxy and compatibility with
nationalism and a scientific worldview. Published in both Urdu and English,
these works are clearly aimed at a broad audience of educated Pakistanis, as
well as potential international converts and allies. With attention to content
and style, I examine these works to illustrate the Chishti Sabiri critique of
Orientalist interpretations of Sufism, its rethinking of South Asian Islamicate
history, and its valorization of Sufi practice as the bedrock of Pakistani
national identity.
The Shaykh Strikes Back: Islamic Sufism

Islamic Sufism was first published in English in 1984 and subsequently
reprinted in several editions, both in Pakistan and Malaysia. Many of its key
ideas and much of its rhetoric echo Wahid Bakhsh’s Urdu writings, particularly
Mushahada-i haqq.40 Islamic Sufism, although hardly unique, serves as a useful
primer for the shaykh’s wide-ranging thought. In this eclectic text, he responds
directly to pervasive and persistent (mis)interpretations of Sufi history, doctrine,
and practice. Marshaling an array of historical, scriptural, and scholarly evidence
and brandishing a sharp polemical sword, the shaykh reasserts the orthodoxy of
Sufism. In a spirited defense of his own tradition, Wahid Bakhsh castigates
Western scholars and Islamist ideologues alike for their one-dimensional and
reductive portraits of Sufi tradition. Through a wide-ranging and nuanced
exposition, he challenges the assumptions, methodologies, and conclusions of
Western scholars with a critical eye and sharp tongue.
Wahid Bakhsh begins his exposé by confidently asserting his own credentials
as a spiritual master in the Chishti Sabiri silsila. Apologizing for his deficiencies
in the English language, he declares, “Having been a practicing Sufi for the last
forty-five years, it can reasonably be hoped that my understanding of Sufi
doctrine is better than that of the competent English scholars who have never
practiced this discipline but have looked at it from a distance. So it is perhaps a
choice between better understanding expressed in a defective language and
defective understanding expressed in better language.”41 This is an intriguing
statement. Here Wahid Bakhsh defends his own intellectual turf, claiming the
authority and authenticity to speak. Sufi piety, he insists, constitutes a special-
ized sphere of knowledge to which he has privileged access. Distinguishing
himself from foreign academics whose understanding is limited to the second-
hand abstractions of books, Wahid Bakhsh asserts an expertise rooted in direct,
unmediated experience gained through the rigors of Sufi practice.
Wahid Bakhsh commits a third of Islamic Sufism’s 400 pages to a detailed
critique of Orientalist characterizations of Sufism in a chapter entitled “The
Myth of Foreign Influence of Sufism Exploded.” The opening paragraph
challenges Sufism’s academic interlocutors to task for mistaking the similari-
ties between mystical traditions as proof of outside influences on Sufism. In
Wahid Bakhsh’s words,
The storm of allegations of outside influence on Sufism has been raised partly
by a section of ill-informed and biased Western scholars popularly known as
Orientalists and partly by a small minority of ultra-orthodox and purely exoteric
Muslim theologians. Both of these groups have been badly misled by some sort
of similarity between the Sufis (awliya') of Islam and the mystics of Christianity,
Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. They do not realize that when god is One and Truth
is One, the nature of views, beliefs and spiritual experiences of various mystics
are bound to be identical.42
In the ensuing exposition, Wahid Bakhsh offers a trenchant analysis and

refutation of seven principal misconceptions of Sufism propagated by
Western Orientalist scholars. Writing in a direct and unambiguous style, he

marshals evidence from disparate sources—Qur'an, hadith, Sufi exemplars,
and even “respectable” Western experts—to bolster his arguments. I will
briefly examine Wahid Bakhsh’s critique, point by point.
1. “The first and foremost reason for the misunderstanding of Sufism is

their [Orientalists] misunderstanding of Islam itself.”43
Wahid Bakhsh begins with the assumption that the Christian heritage of
most Orientalist scholars inherently biases them against the Qur'an and the
Prophet. An objective reading of history, he insists, reveals Europe’s debt to the
Islamic world whose “learning, art, culture, science and civilization . . . drew
Europe out of the quagmire of the Dark Ages and laid the very foundations of
the era of science, culture and technology in which we are living today.”44 As
evidence of Europe’s debt to Islamicate civilization, Wahid Bakhsh lauds the
medieval Muslim polymaths, Ibn 'Arabi and al-Ghazali, whose theology, he
asserts, had a profound impact on their Christian counterpart Thomas Aquinas.
Quoting liberally from the scholarly works of Philip Hitti and A.J. Arberry,
Wahid Bakhsh highlights the legacy of Muslim philosophers who preserved and
advanced the legacy of Plato and Aristotle while “reconciling philosophy not
only with religion but with Sufic [sic] theosophy as well.”45 Given his overar-
ching critique of European Orientalism, Wahid Bakhsh’s reliance on Western
scholarship in this context is particularly intriguing. Elsewhere in Islamic
Sufism he quotes liberally from numerous scholars, including H.A.R Gibb,
Louis Massignon, William Cantwell Smith, R.A Nicholson, Margaret Smith,
and Annemarie Schimmel. The shaykh’s eclectic selection of Western “experts”
on Islam even includes an enigmatic quote from James Michener drawn from
Reader’s Digest. Clearly, Wahid Bakhsh has read widely. Yet even as he acknowl-
edges the contributions of select Western academics, the shaykh insists that
Muslims are fully capable of speaking for (and defending) themselves. In his
view, the intellectual and cultural accomplishments of Islamic civilization stand
as incontrovertible proof of Islam’s sacrality and inherent superiority.
2. “The second reason for the misunderstanding on the part of the
Orientalists is that, according to them, the word Sufism (tasawwuf ) was not
in vogue in the time of the Prophet of Islam and that, therefore, it is of an
extraneous origin.”46
Here Wahid Bakhsh argues that each of the Islamic interpretive traditions—
including exegesis (tafsir), hadith, law (fiqh), theology (kalam), and Sufism—
came to full fruition only after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Quoting
numerous well-known hadith, he asserts that the spiritual practices associated
with Sufism were also an integral dimension of faith and practice from Islam’s
origins. He concludes with a statement from Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) as
proof that the actual word tasawwuf was in vogue in Islam’s first century:
“One who indulged in Tasawwuf, but did not learn Fiqah [sic] is a heretic.
One who learnt Fiqah, but did not practice Sufism is a sinner. One who com-
bined Sufism and Fiqah finds the Truth.”47 Islam and Sufism, Wahid Bakhsh
asserts, are coeval and coterminous.
3. “The third reason for misunderstanding is the similarity of Sufi phrase-

ology to that of Christian and Hindu mysticism and Neoplatonism.”48
A refutation of outside influences on Sufism is a major focus of Wahid
Bakhsh’s apologetic, as the subtitle to his book suggests. In this section, the
shaykh provides lengthy quotations from both A.J. Arberry and Shahidullah
Faridi to assert Sufism’s firm foundations in Islamic history. He vehemently
rejects all allegations of outside influences from other spiritual traditions.
Wahid Bakhsh returns to this theme in two later sections of the book entitled
“The Strong Influence of Islamic Sufism on Hindu Mysticism” and “The
Influence of Sufism on the Hindu Sects, Lingayats (Jangamas) and Siddhars
[sic].” Quoting liberally from The Influence of Islam on Indian Culture, a text
by the Indian scholar Tara Chand (b. 1888), he turns the Orientalist argu-
ment on its head to assert the widespread influence of Sufi mystics on their
South Asian religious counterparts. Wahid Bakhsh concludes with a remark-
able statement:
We have seen that giant Hindu saints, right from Sankara, Ramanuja,
Ramanand and Kabir to their illustrious disciples and disciples of their disciples
for so many centuries had, under the influence of the company and direct
teachings and training of Muslim saints, given up most of the beliefs and
doctrines of Hinduism, such as belief in idolatry, transmigration, cremation of
the dead, temple worship, death ceremonies and so on. And, moreover, that
they had accepted important Islamic beliefs and doctrines, such as the belief in
one God and the belief in the genuineness of the Prophet of Islam, and had
adopted practices of piety, austerity, righteousness and devotion, to the extent
[of performing] five prayers daily, and were at the same time striving for the
reconciliation of Islam and Hinduism.49
While these are certainly debatable claims, they nonetheless offer key
insights into the logic and rhetorical strategy of Wahid Bakhsh’s counter-
polemic. The intensity of his defensive posturing suggests that the articula-
tion of a distinct South Asian Sufi identity was among his highest priorities.
In this, Wahid Bakhsh’s rhetoric parallels the historical project of his con-
temporary Sayyid Abu'l Hasan 'Ali Nadwi (1914–1999). This prominent
religious scholar and political activist was best known for his lifelong associa-
tion with the reformist movement Nadwat al-'Ulama. In his public writings
and political activism, Nadwi was primarily concerned with rejuvenating the
position of the 'ulama in Indian society, not with defending Sufism. Like
Wahid Bakhsh, however, Nadwi’s writings defend the orthodoxy of Indian
Islam and attempt to document the intellectual and cultural achievements of
Islam in South Asia. And not surprisingly, Nadwi was also highly critical of
Islamist ideology.50
4. “The fourth reason for misunderstanding on the part of the critics is the
pantheism of the Sufis [the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud] which has proved
to be the greatest stumbling block for them.”51
In this lengthy section, Wahid Bakhsh delves into the intricacies of
Sufi metaphysics to elucidate one of the principal doctrines of the Chishti
order: wahdat al-wujud (“unity of being”). Rejecting the allegations of

Christian, Hindu, or Neoplatonic influences, he proclaims that there is no
conflict between pure Islamic pantheism and pure Islamic monotheism. The
differences between these two doctrines, he asserts, are “verbal (lafzi), not
real (haqiqi).”52 Invoking the fundamental doctrine of tawhid—the absolute
“oneness” of God—Wahid Bakhsh attacks the conservative Hanbali theolo-
gian Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), for his anthropomorphic view of divinity,
and he critiques both the Hindu concept of reincarnation and the Christian
Trinity. In explaining wahdat al-wujud, Wahid Bakhsh writes, “The correct
Islamic conception of God is that He is the only Being that exists and noth-
ing exists besides Him. All things have only relative or imaginary existence
like waves, bubbles and ice which are nothing but water in reality. They are
water in different shapes and forms . . . According to real Islamic pantheism,
everything is not God, but it is not separate from God either.”53
Quoting from the Qur'an and such spiritual luminaries as Jalal ad-Din
Rumi, al-Hallaj, Abu Yazid al-Bistami, Ibn 'Arabi, Shah Waliullah, and
Ahmad Sirhindi, the shaykh explains and defends pantheism. A full under-
standing of this complex doctrine, he maintains, is accessible only through
direct spiritual experience. Here again Wahid Bakhsh ridicules Western schol-
ars for debating matters they know nothing about:
Since pantheism is a matter of personal spiritual experience which only comes

when the lower-self [nafs] is annihilated and replaced by the luminous spiritual
self [ruh], it is not possible to explain it in terms of the exoteric knowledge of
the scholars. But since the scholars think they are capable enough to under-
stand everything they, when confronted with this inexplicable subtle phraseol-
ogy of the spiritualists, indulge in all sorts of speculations and create a labyrinth
of conjectures and guess work only to make confusion more confounded.54
For Wahid Bakhsh, the Sufi’s intuitive, experiential knowledge eclipses the
abstractions and positivism of both the Orientalists and the 'ulama. Claiming
access to both, the shaykh concludes by stating, “I, as a Sufi, cum orthodox
Muslim theologian, reiterate that pure and unadulterated pantheism is a
certainty and is supported not only by the Qur'an and hadith of the Prophet,
but by logic as well.”55
5. “The fifth reason for misunderstanding on the part of the Orientalists is
the extreme state of maturity or perfection of the stage of baqa-bi-Allah
[“remaining in God”], when control over ecstasies and raptures is so great
and the seeker looks so ordinary in the midst of inner storms of fascinations
and charms that it becomes exceedingly difficult to detect his high spiritual
attainments.”56
In this section, Wahid Bakhsh stresses the importance of spiritual etiquette
(adab), arguing that the highest stages of esoteric mystical insight are
properly masked by the outward display of sobriety. Evoking the example of
the Prophet and his Companions, he argues that spiritual growth demands
an unwavering attention to propriety and self-control. The Sufi path, he
maintains, is an intimate and private affair between the seeker and God, and
esoteric knowledge must be carefully guarded. Here the shaykh is critical of

figures such as al-Hallaj who failed to maintain silence when overwhelmed by
spiritual intoxication. In Wahid Bakhsh’s words, “Since ecstasies and raptures
are the result of weakness and smallness of one’s vessel, the Sufis of the
later ages who had lesser self control to suppress the storm of inner inspira-
tion, succumbed to ecstasies and were overwhelmed and, thus, gave out
their secret.”57 According to Wahid Bakhsh, Sufi decorum requires the con-
cealment of inner spiritual attainments coupled with a dignified public
demeanor. This outward comportment, he insists, lulls the Orientalist
observer into concluding that Sufism is nothing more than an intellectual
abstraction. According to Wahid Bakhsh, the perfected Sufi veils her/his
inner spiritual mastery.
6. “The sixth reason for Western misunderstanding of Islam is that they
try to judge Islam on the standards of Christianity, and the Prophet of Islam
on the standards of the Prophet of Christianity.”58
Here Wahid Bakhsh broadens his apologetic to defend Islam against the
stereotypical images of the tradition’s worldliness and militancy. Dismissing
such allegations as shallow polemics, he argues that the Qur'an rejects the
separation between church and state. In a statement reminiscent of numerous
Islamist ideologues such as Mawdudi, he proclaims, “[Islam] provides a com-
plete code of action to mankind both in the temporal and spiritual fields of
activity, including politics, economics, and social behavior.”59 Championing
Islam as the culmination of the Abrahamic religions, Wahid Bakhsh dismisses
allegations of the Prophet’s excessive worldliness. He highlights his disregard
for wealth and power as ends in themselves, asserting that the Prophet’s real
battle was “for human rights, peace and justice in the world.”60 In denying
the authenticity of the Qur'anic revelation, Wahid Bakhsh asserts,
Orientalists have invariably misunderstood and misrepresented Islam’s true
spirit and message.
7. “The seventh reason for misunderstanding on the part of the
Orientalists is some difference of opinion between the Sufis and the orthodox
theologians of Islam on certain spiritual matters, which is not a peculiarity of
the Muslims alone.”61
In this final section, Wahid Bakhsh argues that in all religious traditions
there is an inherent tension between exoteric and esoteric knowledge. Within
Islam, however, it is a mistake to equate this friction with incompatibility.
Drawing on numerous Western scholars, the shaykh documents the historical
battles between Christian theologians and mystics as proof of a deep and last-
ing divide within Christianity. By contrast, he argues, Sufism is completely in
line with Islamic orthodoxy. In Wahid Bakhsh’s words, “Far from being
antagonistic to Sufism, orthodoxy is the very basis and foundation of all spir-
itual endeavour, progress and development. Sufism (tasawwuf) is defined as
a combination of four elements: shari'at (law), tariqat (inward advance),
haqiqat (truth) and ma'arifat (Gnosis), and none of these are dispensable.
The Holy Prophet himself was at once the greatest orthodox Muslim and the
greatest spiritualist.”62 The shaykh goes on to assert that the Companions and
most of the renowned premodern scholars of Islam—including the founders

of the four schools of law (madhahib)––were all practicing, pious Sufis. In a
rhetorical jab at his Islamist critics who claim Ahmad ibn Hanbal as their
intellectual standard bearer, he asks, “[W]hen the heads of the four orthodox
schools of Islam were Sufis, how could their followers in subsequent centuries
take exception to Sufism?”63 Thus, Wahid Bakhsh ends his critique of
Orientalist scholarship by returning to his initial point: Sufism is fully in keeping
with orthodox Islamic doctrine and normative practice.
As we have seen, the discursive landscape of contemporary Pakistan is lit-

tered with a dizzying array of competing ideological formulations associated
with colonialism, economic modernization, scientific secularism, and anti-
Hindu communalism. Within this bricolage, even the notion of a distinctive
“Pakistani Islam”—the very rationale for the founding of the nation-state—
has proved to be a highly contested signifier. As Katherine Ewing notes,
“Today in Pakistan, after many years of reformist activity, there is a wide range
of opinions about which activities fall within the boundaries of proper Islam
and which fall outside, despite many efforts to articulate an Islam that would
draw all Pakistanis together as a nation.”64 In a direct challenge to these com-
peting discourses, Wahid Bakhsh forwards an alternative reading of Indo-
Muslim history that reasserts the primacy of Chishti Sabiri identity. In essence,
his reformulation champions the continuity of Sufi doctrine and practice—the
persistence of Sufi values, rituals, and institutions—as a bastion against the
erosion of Islamic values by Western materialism and secularization.
Wahid Bakhsh asserts that human beings are instinctually religious crea-
tures. To deny the ultimate reality of God, he argues, is to deny one’s own
humanity. “Man’s religious urge is not an ordinary thing,” the shaykh writes.
“It is his ultimate source of ethics, of morality and of his quest for the attain-
ment of truth and reality. It is the only answer to his real and basic needs at
all times and in all environments. It is an instinct, the very nature of man, and
denying it can only mean disaster and destruction.”65 In Wahid Bakhsh’s
assessment, Western civilization undermines the centrality of religious iden-
tity and spiritual practice, replacing God with the false idols of materialism
and secularism. Lamenting the current state of the world—war, social injus-
tice, economic and political exploitation, and moral decay—he asks,
Do people still want to be told that, as things stand, their future is dark, very
dark indeed? Do they still need reformers to preach to them the virtues of hon-
esty? Do they still require another century to learn that material progress and
scientific achievements without a good and genuine moral background are
capable of very great mischief? There can be no smooth and sustained progress
without religion, and no religion can be true, authentic and complete unless it
is comprehensive enough to furnish mankind with a complete code of life.66
Wahid Bakhsh asserts that Christianity has failed Western civilization by

“divorcing itself from the worldly aspects of human life, from man’s bodily
life of physical needs and desires, [from] his economics and his politics.”67
Christianity, in his view, is fundamentally at odds with human nature.

Further, this incompatibility has hastened the marginalization of religion
from modern life. In the shaykh’s words, “Now, because Christianity has been
the West’s only religious experience for centuries, the Western people have
grown accustomed to identifying it with religion proper and, therefore, their
disappointment with Christianity has assumed the shape of a disappointment
with religion proper.”68 As befits a practicing Sufi master, Wahid Bakhsh pro-
claims the timeless and enduring wellspring of Qur'anic revelation and the
prophetic teachings accessible through Sufi doctrine and ritual practice as a
remedy to this spiritual lacuna.
Islamic Sufism offers numerous expositions of Sufi doctrine. This includes
a chapter on “Belief in God”; a translation of a work by Wahid Bakhsh’s own
shaykh, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, entitled “The Sufi Path”; and an essay by
Shahidullah Faridi titled “The Spiritual Psychology of Islam.” These intro-
ductory pieces cover a range of key concepts, including the immanence and
transcendence of God; the grades of Divine Being (muratib-i wujud); the
doctrine of wahdat al-wujud; the six subtle centers (lata'if); the duties of a
spiritual guide (shaykh); the states (hal) and stations (maqam) of the Path; the
doctrine of love (ishq); fana' and baqa'; asceticism; and the relationship
between the lower self (nafs), heart (qalb), and spirit (ruh). What is perhaps
most striking about the text, however, is the marked absence of the nuanced
examinations of Sufi doctrine and ritual practice so prevalent in Wahid
Bakhsh’s Urdu works. In the introduction he acknowledges this deficiency,
stating, “In the end, I tender my apologies for an inadequate exposition of
the Sufi doctrine and a weak expression of these high spiritual subjects. This
is partly because of my inadequate knowledge of the foreign language and
partly because of the scarcity of adequate substitutes for Sufi terminology in
the English language. In fact, human language is incapable of explaining the
inexplicable realities and truths of spiritualism, which can better be realized
and experience than expressed in words.”69 While Wahid Bakhsh does not say
so, I suspect that the relative absence of detailed attention to doctrine has
much to do with Islamic Sufism’s intended audience: educated Pakistanis and
international disciples, scholars and potential converts. The text focuses prin-
cipally on the outward, embodied dimensions of ritual practice by design—a
distinguishing feature in the writings of many Islamic reformists, here with a
uniquely Chishti Sabiri spin.
Emphasizing Sufism’s roots in Islamic orthodoxy, Wahid Bakhsh devotes
an entire chapter to the Five Pillars of Islam (arkan). Throughout, he empha-
sizes that strict adherence to the shari'a is a vital precursor to the Sufi path
(tariqa) toward gnosis (ma'arifa). “So, like every other Muslim, a Sufi has to
observe all the prayers and perform all the deeds of piety made obligatory in
Islam,” he writes. “The Sufis know by experience that the slightest deviation
from the injunctions of Islam affects them adversely.”70 In a revealing
passage, Wahid Bakhsh acknowledges that certain people, claiming the title
of Sufi, neglect the shar'ia. In doing so, they give the entire tradition a bad
name, adding fuel to the fire of Islamist polemical attacks on Sufism. These
fakers—as opposed to real faqirs—he insists, deserve the strongest condem-

nation: “We admit, orthodoxy has been fighting some genuine battles, but
these battles have been fought against those who are charlatans and pseudo-
faqirs, who in order to fleece the simple innocent people, have appeared in
different garbs and guises. Their tactics are manifold, the most common
being the cult of pantheism of the Hindu type under whose cover they get rid
of all the rituals of Islam, saying they are too ‘intoxicated’ to attend to these
formalities, and in order to make their ‘intoxication’ appear real they resort to
heavy drugs.”71 Wahid Bakhsh contrasts these “pseudo-faqirs” with “true
Sufis” who are distinguished by their excessive piety, incessant prayers, and
constant recollection of God. Since Sufism begins where orthodox practice
ends, the shaykh asserts, Sufi ritual practice extends worship and deepens faith.
In an effort to illuminate the centrality of ritual devotions for Sufi identity,
Wahid Bakhsh commits an entire chapter to the practice of zikr––the recollec-
tion and recitation of the names of God. In it, he explores a range of vocal
recitations, physical movements, and breathing techniques, along with the
resulting spiritual effects. Another chapter examines the efficacy of listening to
music (sama'), extolling the benefits of Sufi spiritual poetry performed by a
singer (qawwal) under the strict supervision of a shaykh. In addition to these
distinctly Chishti Sabiri practices, Wahid Bakhsh also comments on the effi-
cacy of visiting the graves of deceased spiritual masters (ziyarat)––a ritual act
widely condemned by Islamists. Here he evokes numerous hadith in defense
of the practice. Visiting shrines, Wahid Bakhsh maintains, is a powerful cata-
lyst to spiritual development but only when complemented by a vigilant
adherence to discipline and decorum (adab). Addressing the reader directly,
he writes, “The amount of inspiration you get from shaykh of the mazar very
much depends on the effort which you put in at home during the year. The
more you pray, worship, fast, recite the Qur'an and do spiritual exercises and
zikr at home, the greater is your power of reception at the shrine, which in
turn serves as greater incentive for increased endeavour at home the year
round. In other words, work at home and inspiration at the shrine are inter-
dependent and supplement each other.”72 Islamic Sufism concludes with a
series of biographical portraits of influential Sufi luminaries. This includes a
discussion of such illustrious premodern Sufi masters as Hasan al-Basri, Rabi'a
al-'Adawiyya, Abu Yazid al-Bistami, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Ibn 'Arabi. Wahid
Bakhsh lauds these paradigmatic figures as models of Muslim piety, propriety,
and orthodoxy—Sufi saints who embodied the very essence of Islamic doc-
trine. By evoking these premodern spiritual exemplars, the shaykh affirms the
continued relevance of Sufi values and ritual practices for the modern age.
Throughout Islamic Sufism, Wahid Bakhsh asserts that the Sufi worldview
is entirely amenable to rational thought and scientific inquiry. As the subtitle
to his book suggests, he views Sufism itself as a “science”—a practical,
rational, systematically arranged form of knowledge committed to the explo-
ration of natural laws. In the introduction, Wahid Bakhsh writes, “Sufism and
science are striving for the same destination. Science wants to know: How did
the universe come into being and what is its nature? Is there any Creator?
What is He like? Where is He? How is He related to the universe? How is He

related to man? Is it possible for man to approach Him? Sufism has found the
answers and invites the scientists to come and have that knowledge.”73
Though he recognizes the compatibility of science and Sufism, however,
Wahid Bakhsh asserts the innate superiority of the latter. Scientific explo-
ration of the material world, he argues, has no answers for many vital dimen-
sions of life, from morals and ethics to eschatology, metaphysics, and
spirituality. In Wahid Bakhsh’s assessment,
The really advanced scientists are now beginning to realize their mistake. Faced
with the impossibility of deciding metaphysical questions by means of physical
research, they have to give up the childish hopes of the last two centuries that
science will provide directives in the field of ethics and spirituality. They are now
realizing that science has no direct connection with man’s moral life. Science can
certainly guide us to a better understanding of the physical world around us and
in us, but it cannot be called upon to deliver a verdict as to the purpose of life
and, thus, create a moral consciousness in us. No amount of enthusiasm for sci-
entific thought can hide the fact that the problem of morality is not within the
scope of science. It is, on the other hand, entirely within the scope of religion.74
As evidence of “advanced scientists” Wahid Bakhsh includes an extract

from a curious article entitled “Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron
Curtain,” along with another selection from “a highly reputable English
medium, Geraldine Cummins.” These texts purport to document “scien-
tific” proof of a spiritual energy animating the universe.75 The shaykh quotes
liberally from two additional sources—The Bible, The Qur'an and Science by
Dr. Maurice Bucaille, a French scientist, and Michael Talbot’s Mysticism and
the New Physics—to illustrate the scientific contributions of Islamic society
and to assert that the Qur'an is entirely compatible with the latest scientific
discoveries.76 In this rhetorical move, Wahid Bakhsh is no different from a
host of other Muslim reformers and revivalists, including Jamal ad-Din al-
Afghani (d. 1897), Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), Muhammad Iqbal
(d. 1938), Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (d. 1960), and even Mawlana Mawdudi
(d. 1941).77 Despite his curious choice of sources, Wahid Bakhsh’s point is
clear. In his view, even in the face of massive societal change—from the rise of
Western political power, to widespread economic and political restructuring,
to the triumph of scientific rationalism—timeless, bedrock religious truths
endure. When used appropriately, scientific inquiry and technological
advances may refine and deepen religious knowledge, the shaykh argues, but
they can never replace it.
On the whole, Islamic Sufism offers numerous insights into the Chishti
Sabiri writing project. In this enigmatic text, Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani employs
new idioms in a novel format to express the enduring fundamentals of
Chishti Sabiri thought and practice. In form and style, the book mirrors the
models of Western academia. It contains technical vocabulary, an index, bib-
liography, glossary, graphs, and even a color photograph of the shaykh. A true
bibliophile, Wahid Bakhsh moves fluidly in multiple languages and diverse
epistemological registers to present an old message in a new medium. In

appropriating select categories of modernity (rationalism and science) and
simultaneously rejecting others (Westernization, materialism, and seculariza-
tion) the shaykh walks an ideological tightrope. Yet despite this balancing act,
there is never any doubt about Wahid Bakhsh’s fundamental worldview and
underlying objectives. Though eclectic in style and wide-ranging in subject
matter, Islamic Sufism is a quintessentially Sufi text designed to communicate
the Chishti Sabiri tradition to a global audience.
Sacralizing the “Land of the Pure”: The Magnificent

Power Potential of Pakistan
Throughout their writings, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani champion Sufism as an alternative network of
Islamic piety and practice. The vast majority of their work in fact explores Sufi
doctrine and ritual performance. Yet in select writings, the shaykhs directly
engage the realm of politics and polemics, commenting on the ideology and
institutions of the Pakistani nation-state. Why? As Talal Asad argues, they
have little choice: “Given that the modern nation-state seeks to regulate all
aspects of individual life—even the most intimate, such as birth and death—
no one, religious or otherwise, can avoid encountering its ambitious powers.
It is not only that the state intervenes directly in the social body for purposes
of reform; it is that all social activity requires the consent of the law, and
therefore of the nation-state. The way social spaces are defined, ordered and
regulated makes them all political.”78 As the 2001 Pakpattan tragedy clearly
illustrated, Islamic authority and authenticity are intensely argued and
debated in Pakistani public discourse. In response to the state’s attempts to
appropriate Sufi tradition, Chishti Sabiri writings imagine an alternative
past, present, and future in which Sufi traditions—its sacred sites, its spiritual
luminaries, its doctrine, and its practices—play a central role in the constitution
of local and global Muslim identity.
No text more succinctly encapsulates the contemporary Chishti Sabiri
silsila’s imaginings of Pakistan and the roots of its national and religious iden-
tity than Wahid Bakhsh’s massive tome: Pakistan ki azim ush-shan difai
quwwat [The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan].79 In this eclectic
work, the shaykh turns his attention from the rarefied heights of din (religion)
to the concrete realm of dunya (the practical, lived-in world of realpolitik). In
a sweeping survey of Islamic military and cultural history, he draws inspira-
tion and guidance from a reified portrait of a lost Golden Age. Wahid Bakhsh
champions the compatibility of Islam, modernity, and mysticism as the gen-
uine foundation of Pakistani nationhood and a bulwark against Western—
and Indian—cultural encroachment and political hegemony. A critical
examination of this text offers further insights into postcolonial subjectivity
and its relation to religious identity, ideology, and expression.
The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan was first published in Urdu in
1986. It was subsequently reissued in 2000 in an English translation by one
of the shaykh’s senior disciples, Brigadier Muhammad Asghar. It is a weighty

book, more than 550 pages in length in both its Urdu and English manifes-
tations. This scale is equaled by the text’s scope. Wahid Bakhsh’s analysis
ranges from a comprehensive analysis of early Islamic military history to a
survey of Indo-Muslim culture. It culminates in a frank assessment of
Pakistan’s position—as the title suggests, its “power potential”—in the con-
temporary global order. Throughout the text, the shaykh utilizes a scholarly
voice to place Pakistan in its historical and geopolitical context. In a subtle,
subversive twist, however, he places Sufism at the very center of both Islamic
thought and practice and Pakistani national identity and ideology. In Wahid
Bakhsh’s alternative reading of history, Pakistan is rightfully an Islamic
republic rooted in Sufi piety.
The shaykh’s political magnum opus is firmly grounded in historical context.
Many of the book’s parameters—and all of its polemics—are understood only
against the backdrop of South Asian geopolitics in the late cold war period.
It was written at a time of profound upheaval and uncertainty for Pakistan.
During the 1980s, Pakistan’s domestic politics were radically transformed
under the military dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia al-Haq. At the
same time, the proxy war in neighboring Afghanistan fought by U.S.- and
Pakistan-sponsored mujahidin groups against the Soviets further exacerbated
regional instability.80 Writing in the midst of these turbulent times, Wahid
Bakhsh frames the late twentieth century through a polarized lens. His analy-
sis bifurcates the globe along two civilizational fracture zones: an aggressive,
expansionist “West”—Europe, the United States, and, by extension, its satel-
lite state, Israel—that perpetuates the colonial legacy in order to subvert and
control the Muslim world. In Wahid Bakhsh’s words, “Now that the valiant
people of Asia and Africa have expelled the colonialists, they are trying to
stage a comeback by weakening these countries from within. They are apply-
ing direct as well as indirect strategies, which include naked aggression, sub-
version, a cultural offensive, an economic aid offensive, a technical aid
offensive and the so-called ‘peace’ offensives. The Muslims must wake up to
assess and respond to these seemingly innocuous but otherwise more dan-
gerous dimensions of threats.”81
In surveying the contemporary global political landscape, Wahid
Bakhsh inverts Orientalist essentialisms to valorize a spiritualized “East”
against a godless “West.” In many ways, this rhetorical move parallels the
ideological formations of early Indian nationalism in its campaign of resist-
ance against the British Raj.82 It is a common rhetorical strategy in South
Asian Islamic discourse as well. The notion of clashing civilizations is a
familiar motif in the writings of the famous Indian religious scholar Sayyid
Abu'l Hasan 'Ali Nadwi (1914–1999), for example. And like Nadwi,
Wahid Bakhsh’s notion of a chasm between East and West probably “owes
more to nineteenth and early twentieth century Orientalist notions than
he seems to recognize.”83
Echoing the polemical attacks of numerous Islamists—from al-Afghani
and Sayyid Qutb to Mawlana Mawdudi—Wahid Bakhsh attacks the West for
its hypocrisy, cruelty, greed, and violence. In his words,
They [Westerners] accepted what related to the physical sciences and what
contributed towards material progress, but rejected what belonged to the
purification of self, spiritual progress and success in life hereafter. Consequently,
their one sided development has created a culture which is unstable, imbal-
anced and moving on a single track. Since they rebelled against their religion,
they have been deprived of the treasures of religious knowledge. They have jumped
from one extreme to the other, as they have run away from absolute renuncia-
tion and walked into the trap of absolute materialism. They have rejected
absolute superstition but adopted absolute secularism. Their absolute hatred
for women has been replaced by absolute sexual frivolity. They have freed them-
selves from religion, but got into a race for material progress and national
superiority. In their reckless pursuit of power they have stumbled, only to dis-
cover that the weapons of mass destruction, which they claim as their proud
inventions, are there to destroy the entire edifice of their civilization.84
Obsessed with power, money, and conquest, Wahid Bakhsh argues, the West
is morally bankrupt. Though technologically advanced, it has sacrificed reli-
gion in favor of science, secularism, and worldly pleasure. And it is this fatal
choice, the shaykh concludes, that will be the West’s undoing.
In response to the West’s cultural and political challenge, Wahid Bakhsh
calls upon Muslims to reclaim and resurrect their own cultural heritage.
Resistance, he insists, need not take the form of physical violence. Instead,
Muslims should mount a peaceful, spiritual campaign to attack the West
where it is most vulnerable. “The miraculous power of Islamic spirituality is
so strong that we, the Muslims, are not required to pick up swords to con-
quer the spiritual wastelands of the West,” writes the shaykh. “Since every
heart by nature yearns for Divine love and Divine bounty, any heart with a
spiritual vacuum is absolutely defenseless against the expanding spiritual tor-
rent of Islam. The West is helpless and exposed to the ingress of the Truth.
The process of Islamic conquests in spiritually starved humanity is therefore
an eternal and continuous process.85 For Wahid Bakhsh, a return to the lost
Golden Age of Islam presupposes a revitalization of the roots of Islamic
orthodoxy. For him, “true Islam” is found in the immutable blueprint
enshrined in the Qur'an, sunna, and, most significantly, Sufi tradition.
Throughout the book, Wahid Bakhsh again invokes numerous Sufi
exemplars, among them Imam Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Junaid Baghdadi, Jalal ad-
Din Rumi, and Sayyid 'Ali al-Hujwiri. As befits a Chishti Sabiri shaykh, he also
lauds the early luminaries of his own spiritual genealogy, especially Khwaja
Mu'in ad-Din Chishti and Baba Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar. In Wahid
Bakhsh’s eyes, these paradigmatic Sufi saints embody the Prophet
Muhammad’s virtues: piety, self-sacrifice, sincerity, charity, humility, and an
unwavering commitment to social justice. As the heirs to the Prophet, the
Sufi “Friends of God” therefore offer a moral compass for Muslims and dis-
enchanted Westerners alike. According to Wahid Bakhsh, “We, the Muslims,
must realize that the Westerners themselves are alienated against the Western
civilization. They have very high hopes and high expectations from Islam.
The new manifestation of religion which I have pointed to is the ever-increas-
ing demand of the West for Sufism. It is our first and foremost duty to offer
Sufism to the West. And in this lies the secret of our success.”86 Western
civilization, the shaykh maintains, is ready for a fall. And it is Sufism—the
heart of Islam and the essence of orthodoxy—that stands ready to fill the
“spiritual vacuum.”
The bulk of The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan centers on a
comprehensive (and profoundly romanticized) review of Islamic military and
cultural history. For Wahid Bakhsh, the martial spirit of the Muslim past
offers a blueprint for societal renewal and the promise of a self-confident and
assertive Indo-Muslim future. In his interpretation of history, piety was the
backbone of power—military, social, cultural, economic, and political—during
the zenith of the Muslim empire. Wahid Bakhsh’s call for Islam’s revitaliza-
tion conflates religious orthodoxy—with Sufism at its center—with military
might, social order, and cultural florescence. Rejecting passivity, apologetics,
and defensiveness, the shaykh challenges Muslims to restore the dynamism of
the umma by embracing the lessons of their own past. The neglect of Islam’s
original teachings and traditions, he asserts, has only resulted in doubt, weak-
ness, and civilizational drift:
One of the causes of Muslim decline is their indifference to and detachment

from their glorious history. This book therefore brings to focus the feats of
valor, operational brilliance and tactical excellence of the great captains of
Islam. It also throws light on the contributions of our forefathers to science,
technology, artistry, social sciences and cultural fields. The aim is to pull our
Westernized and defeated minds out of their inferiority complex so that they
realize that they are sparkling stars of the glorious galaxy of the Muslim civi-
lization and culture.87
For Wahid Bakhsh, a thorough study of history is an essential first step

toward the revitalization of Islamic civilization.
Beginning with the early community of believers surrounding the Prophet
Muhammad, Wahid Bakhsh’s narrative charts the rise and fall of Islamic civi-
lization across the centuries and around the globe. His analysis moves from
the Hijra to Medina and the military conquests of Persia, Byzantium, and
Spain, to the Crusades, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and resistance to
colonial regimes. Not surprisingly, the shaykh gives particular attention to
Muslim incursions into the Subcontinent and the subsequent rise of a distinct
Indo-Islamic culture. Throughout this chronological survey, Wahid Bakhsh
lauds the self-confidence, faith, bravery, and bravado of the early Muslim
community. Significantly, his interpretive lens is entirely self-referential,
following the thread of a sacred Muslim past beyond the purview of the West.
The shaykh’s historical project is much more than an academic pursuit, how-
ever. By returning to their roots, Wahid Bakhsh suggests, twentieth-century
Muslims can build a bulwark against Western cultural encroachment and
political hegemony.
To this end, Wahid Bakhsh’s counternarrative also offers a spirited defense

of the necessity—the orthodoxy—of jihad. Reciting a well-known (if dis-
puted) tradition, he defines jihad as both an internal struggle against the
lower self (the “Greater Jihad,” or jihad-i akbar) and an external resistance
against the enemies of Islam (the “Lesser Jihad,” or jihad-i asghar). All
Muslims, he insists, are compelled by their faith to fight against oppression,
injustice, and tyranny. In another clear example of Wahid Bakhsh’s eclectic
mix of ideology and idioms, he invokes the Qur'an (4:74–76) to “urge the
Muslims to fight for Truth and Justice, and wage Jihad for human rights.”88
Outlining the rules of military engagement, the shaykh asserts that armed
conflict is always moderated by rules of conduct that insure discipline, mod-
eration, and mercy. Torture, mutilation, and the killing of noncombatants, he
insists, are strictly forbidden in the Muslim tradition of just war.
Acutely aware of the Western polemic against jihad, Wahid Bakhsh
remains unapologetic. Once again, he goes on the offensive, criticizing the
West for its hypocrisy and double standards. In his words,
Some Western thinkers criticize Jihad. Their criticism is not understandable as

they themselves have acquired greater wealth and power by subjugating weaker
peoples, conquering foreign territories and plundering others’ treasuries. Their
hands are stained with the blood of many innocent and weaker nations. If
enhancement of national superiority and imperialism through exploitation of
weaker nations is considered legitimate by them, how do they criticize Jihad,
the objectives of which are to extirpate falsehood, uphold Truth, uproot
oppression, eliminate infidelity [kufr] and associationism [shirk], and wipe out
all kinds of malpractices?89
For the shaykh, the rapid expansion and fruition of Islamic civilization in the
past is itself a confirmation of the fruits of a just, moral struggle. He urges
modern Muslims to emulate the example of their spiritual predecessors in
order to reclaim Islam’s original dynamism, zeal, and power.
Wahid Bakhsh’s wide-ranging narrative conveys a triumphal and teleolog-
ical portrait of Islamic sacred history. It culminates in an attempt to discover
the origins of Pakistan in a divinely sanctioned, sacralized past. According to
the shaykh,
The creation of Pakistan is therefore not a fortuitous happening, or the conse-

quence of an accident of history. It is rather a Divine reward for the centuries of
sacrifices, toiling and tribulations of the Mujahidin of Islam. Those visionary
leaders had sensed that the decline of the Ottoman and Mughal empires would
spell disaster for the Muslims and their future would be absolutely dark. The
Muslims had to be rescued, and an ideological state like Pakistan was a dire
necessity of the time and the right answer to the prayers of the millions of
oppressed human beings in general, and the Muslims in particular.90
A patriotic nationalist, Wahid Bakhsh asserts that Pakistan carries the mantle of
the “first Pakistan,” the foundational Muslim state formed by the Prophet
Muhammad and the early community of believers in Medina. Written forty

years after Partition, however, his discourse is permeated by a sense of moral
outrage, indignation, and loss. In the shaykh’s eyes, Pakistan has betrayed its
auspicious beginnings. Mired in poverty, nepotism, corruption, and a
profound crisis of identity, the modern state has failed miserably in its mission
to revive the spirit and values of the Prophet’s Medina. In language that
resonates with sadness and righteous anger Wahid Bakhsh writes,
[The Muslims of South Asia], their dream was Pakistan—a Muslim state based
on the ideology of Islam and a state founded on the edifice of Nizam-e Mustafa
[“the system of the Prophet”], and a state which would be the precursor of
Islamic renaissance. By the grace of Almighty Allah, the sacrifices, toiling and
efforts of the Muslims led to the creation of Pakistan. A part of the dream had
come true: we had a geographic entity called Pakistan, and we had to develop
it into a citadel of Islam. But alas, we lost our way! We forgot the lofty ideals
and objectives for which Pakistan was created. We changed our direction and
we drifted away from our course—the course that would have led us to Mecca
Muazzamah [“Exalted”] and Medina Munawwarah [“Illuminated”]. We are
now heading towards temples, churches and abodes of idolatrous practices. We
had sought to make Pakistan a fortress of Islam. But we have turned it into the
center of greed, corruption, luxury, materialistic values and internal discord.91
Incensed by Pakistan’s weakness, Wahid Bakhsh calls for immediate and

comprehensive changes to combat its endemic cultural rot. In his assessment,
it is only through the moral reform of the individual that social and political
institutions can be revitalized. In a revealing passage, he attacks those who
call for top-down structural changes in the absence of a prevailing change in
the way people think and act:
Some of our impatient politicians, who include some religious scholars as well,
claim that they can reform the society only after coming to power. And that too
despite the prerequisites spelled out by the tradition of the Prophet (peace be
upon him). Unless the masses are reformed, pious and virtuous individuals will
not come to power . . . In order to bring pious individuals to power, we need
to commence our work at the grass roots level. Piety will not trickle down from
top to bottom. Reconstruction of any nation is possible only if scholars, educa-
tionalists, reformers and thinkers reform the masses by interacting with them.
There is a need to establish religious schools, arrange talks for the common
men, write articles in newspapers, magazines and journals, write books and help
in the control and eradication of crime from society. Once the society is
reformed, virtuous people will emerge in accordance with the laws of nature.92
Islamic values and practice, Wahid Bakhsh asserts, cannot simply be codified,
systematized, and enforced. Instead, they must be inculcated, internalized,
and enacted. The shaykh calls for an educated, pious elite to lead the Pakistani
masses back to their Islamic roots. And once again, he evokes the Golden Age
of the early Muslim community as the eternal, universal paradigm for emula-
tion. It is the only political model, he asserts, in which national policy and
public institutions emerge directly from piety and practice.
Wahid Bakhsh outlines a host of practical reforms for Pakistan’s revitaliza-

tion. The restoration of the nation’s foundations, he argues, is not solely a
spiritual battle, but it is one that must be fought simultaneously on multiple
worldly fronts. In response to ground-level realities, the shaykh offers a broad
palate of prescriptions designed to purge Pakistan of its colonial vestiges. He
calls for legal reforms to institutionalize and enforce shari'a;93 educational
reforms to promote science and technology while solidifying “religious
literacy”;94 economic reforms to promote growth and stability while elimi-
nating usury (riba) and the vicious cycle of the debt trap laid by international
monetary institutions;95 military reforms to secure internal social stability and
promote a unified front of Islamic nations to resist Euro-American, Israeli,
and Indian expansionism and hegemony;96 and political reforms to institu-
tionalize an “Islamic democracy” purged of all “Western influences” under
the leadership of an educated, pious elite of select “intellectuals, scholars,
thinkers and social reformers.”97 To say the least, this panoply of reforms is
ambitious in scope and scale. Yet Wahid Bakhsh offers few practical details on
precisely how these reforms should be implemented, institutionalized, and
administered. In this sense, his vision of social reform is reminiscent of
Mawdudi who “showed little interest in the actual working of institutions”
and “was more concerned with abstract theoretical formulations and lessons
in moral philosophy.”98
Pakistan can never be rebuilt, Wahid Bakhsh states, if it fails to overcome
the forces of internal dissolution. Regionalism and local ethnic identity poli-
tics, he says, threaten national unity, undermine political institutions, and
weaken the boundaries of defense. In his words,
We need to bury our political, religious and ethnic differences and face the ene-
mies of Islam like a solid wall . . . Nationalist parties are raising slogans of
“Pashtunistan” [“home of the ethnic Pashtuns” ], “Azad Balochistan” [“a free
home for the ethnic Baluchis”], and “Sindhu Desh” [“the ethnic Sindhis’
country”]. But selfish motives, mutual rivalries and jealousy blind them. They
do not realize that four smaller countries, which they wish to create, will be
swallowed by India overnight. Their dreams of independence will be shattered
and their personal ambitions ruined. When the necks are chopped off, who will
wear garlands? And what use is the crown when the heads have rolled?99
In Wahid Bakhsh’s view, the homegrown divisions of ethnic rivalry are as

destructive as any external enemy.
An even greater strain on Pakistan’s strength and integrity, Wahid Bakhsh
suggests, is the threat of religious sectarianism: the growing specter of Sunni
and Shi'a communalism. Drawing on a well-known hadith, he makes a des-
perate plea for Muslim brotherhood. The divisions within the umma are a
blessing, he insists, promoting healthy debate and competition that deepens
faith and solidifies the community of believers. The alternative—the prolifer-
ation of sectarian violence—could tear the nation apart, threatening
Pakistan’s very survival. Here Wahid Bakhsh is pointedly critical of Sunni-
centric Islamists. He decries the spread of Wahhabi and Salafi doctrine,
denouncing the exclusivity of their faith and the absolutism of their political
and ideological agendas. Not surprisingly, Wahid Bakhsh levels an especially
harsh critique of the Deobandi movement. “The Deobandis have deviated
from the path of their prominent leaders and founders of their school of
thought,” he writes. “In fact, they are treading the path outlined for them by
the enemies of Islam.”100 For Wahid Bakhsh, the Deoband movement has
betrayed the legacy of its Chishti Sabiri predecessors by jettisoning its Sufi
roots in a misguided attempt to purify the faith.
As an antidote to sectarian infighting, Wahid Bakhsh makes an urgent
appeal to Pakistan’s leaders to stop exploiting religion for political gain. As an
Islamic republic, Pakistan’s institutions and laws must encourage unity,
defend minorities, and promote a shared sense of community. Although he
never mentions him by name, it is clear that Wahid Bakhsh is addressing the
government of General Zia when he writes,
These differences among Sunnis, Shias, Barelwis, Deobandis, Muqallids

[followers of discrete schools of Islamic law] and non-Muqallids are of a periph-
eral nature. They have nothing to do with the core issues of Islam on which,
by the grace of Allah, the entire Ummah [global community of Muslims] has
consensus . . . We must not worry about the sectarian differences while enforc-
ing Islam in the country. Our constitution should permit all sects to practice
religion the way they want. The Government should enforce only those clauses
on which all the sects have consensus, such as prohibition of interest, laws of
inheritance, prohibition of drinking, adultery, corruption and criminal proce-
dures. Peripheral or controversial issues like visits to the shrines, sama' [listen-
ing to music], ta'ziya [Shi'a processions during Muharram], and milad [public
celebration’s of the Prophet’s birthday] should be left to the individual sects.101
For Wahid Bakhsh, only a strong, centralized, and assertive state can protect
religious freedom and preserve social order. Loyalty to the nation and a
shared Pakistani identity, he concludes, must ultimately trump the parochial-
ism of regional, tribal, familial, and sectarian identities if Pakistan is to survive
in an increasingly hostile and dangerous world.
In Wahid Bakhsh’s optimistic assessment, once its own house is in order
Pakistan can finally realize its full potential as a central player in the twentieth
century’s geopolitical landscape. In a spirited call to arms, he challenges his
countrymen to work together to resist the perpetuation of global neocolo-
nialism. His strategic analysis characterizes Pakistan as a key buffer state for
Middle Eastern and Asian countries alike, a counterweight to the West’s
hegemonic designs:
Colonization of the entire under-developed world by the West has a lesson for
all the Muslims and non-Muslims. Strong Islamic Empires did and can even
now help to protect the rest of humanity from the ravages of the West . . .
Although colonialism has ended and the physical size of European empires has
shrunk to their native lands, they continue to dominate the international
politico-economic sphere and exploit the weak nations on the basis of their
industrial power, economic prosperity and military muscle . . . India and other
Asian countries must therefore strengthen Pakistan rather than weaken it. The
politicians and religious clergy of Pakistan must understand the role of Pakistan
in the global power structure. They must overcome mutual rivalries and get
united to fight the enemies of Islam. They must remember that any weakness in
Asia will promote Western hegemony.102
For Wahid Bakhsh, this ultimately is Pakistan’s true calling: to assume the
vanguard of a global Islamic renaissance. In his reified portrait of Islamic
sacred history, nothing less will do if Pakistan is to live up to its name (“The
Land of the Pure”) and divinely sanctioned legacy as the heir to the “first
Pakistan,” the Prophet’s Medina.
The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan is a unique and in many ways
atypical work in a market glutted with religious literature, much of it ideo-
logical and highly polemical. Even for Wahid Bakhsh, whose literary pursuits
embraced multiple genres in diverse registers, this book is an anomaly. In a
critical but creative voice, the shaykh alternatively embraces and resists the
parameters of modernity. He appropriates scientific thought, technological
innovation, and the mass media. At the same time, he rejects absolute secu-
larization, the cult of individualism, and unbridled free market capitalism and
democracy—all of which he sees as distinctly Western values and institutions.
Wahid Bakhsh’s historical narrative draws inspiration and guidance from a
reified portrait of Islam’s Golden Age. Pakistan’s salvation, he argues, lies in
the restoration of the spirit of the early Muslim community—an ethos
grounded on tolerance, discipline, order, and strength. Throughout the text,
the shaykh seeks a middle ground between two opposing ideologies: an
aggressive, exclusivist, conservative Sunni Islam (with no space for Sufism),
and an absolutist, expansionist, secular West (with no space for religion). In
many ways, Wahid Bakhsh’s framing of Pakistan as an Islamic state, his fre-
quent evocation of a lost Golden Age, and his outrage at social and moral
decay mirror the style and substance of numerous Muslim social critics. Yet
the shaykh’s final rhetorical flourish distinguishes him from his counterparts.
For Wahid Bakhsh—the most prolific of twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri
masters—Sufi piety and practice are both the quintessential expression of
Islamic orthodoxy and the enduring bedrock of Pakistani identity.
The Twenty-First-Century S ILSILA :

New Media, New Audiences
In the twenty-first century, the Chishti Sabiri order maintains a public face,
even as its private networks of spiritual knowledge and pedagogy remain
unbroken. Following the example of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah
Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, the silsila remains focused on the
written word and continues to publish a diverse array of texts. On both sides
of the Indian Ocean, Pakistani and Malaysian disciples employ a variety of media
outlets to articulate Chishti Sabiri identity for new audiences. Their efforts are
led by a select group of senior murids—both men and women—under the
guidance and supervision of Shaykh Siraj 'Ali Muhammad, the designated

successor of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi and the order’s current teaching
shaykh. At present, some fifty different texts are produced and distributed
from a number of publishing houses. First and foremost among them is
Mahfil-i Zauqiyya. Located in Karachi, it publishes the bulk of the original
Urdu works of Muhammad Zauqi Shah and Shahidullah Faridi. Founded
by Shahidullah himself, it is now administered by a senior male disciple, a
man who was expressly ordered by the shaykh to spearhead the silsila’s
publication efforts.
From this base in Karachi, the Chishti Sabiri publication campaign has
progressively spread throughout Pakistan, and beyond. Since 1989, The
Association of Spiritual Training—founded by Wahid Bakhsh and adminis-
tered by a number of his senior disciples—has published an English language
journal titled The Sufi Path. Based in Islamabad, it has produced fourteen
issues to date. This journal is intended for both an educated Pakistani and an
international audience. Each issue contains a wide variety of materials, rang-
ing from translations of classical Sufi texts and poetry, to selections from the
writings of Chishti Sabiri shaykhs and prominent disciples, to various scholarly
articles. In both format and content, The Sufi Path resembles similar publica-
tions by numerous other Sufi orders in the West. The silsila also maintains a
number of important publishing outlets in the city of Lahore. The Sufi
Foundation, founded by another senior male murid, published a series of
translations and original writings by Wahid Bakhsh during the 1980s. This
work has since continued under the auspices of Bazm-i Ittehad al-Muslimin,
founded in 1984 by the shaykh’s nephew. Beginning in 1996, Talifat-i
Shaheedi, established by another murid of Shahidullah Faridi, has published
four additional texts, three of them in English.
In addition to these “in-house” publishers, the silsila outsources work to
several professional publishing houses in Lahore as well. Ziya al-Qur'an, for
example, currently publishes two of Wahid Bakhsh’s Urdu translations of
classical Persian malfuzat; Qausin Publishers prints two key Urdu malfuzat;
and, most importantly, al-Faisal Publishers distributes a number of Wahid
Bakhsh’s works in both English and Urdu. With these combined efforts,
Chishti Sabiri texts are today readily available in the bookstores and bazaars
of Pakistan’s major cities. The silsila’s books are also found in the myriad
bookstalls that flank the country’s major Sufi shrines, most prominently in
the narrow lanes surrounding the tomb complex of Baba Farid, the Chishti
saint, in Pakpattan.
The Chishti Sabiri order’s persistent commitment to publishing raises an
important question: who precisely is the intended audience? Given Pakistan’s
alarmingly low literacy rates—less than half of the adult population—the
potential reading public is extremely limited and largely determined by edu-
cation and class. As Eickelman and Anderson note, this too is a common
characteristic of new Muslim media that invariably “occupy an interstitial
space between the super-literacy of traditional religious specialists and mass
sub-literacy or illiteracy. Their natural home is the emerging middle, bourgeois
classes of the Muslim world.”103 Despite these limiting factors, Chishti Sabiris
insist that their publications are not designed for mass consumption. In the
words of a prominent male murid, “Our silsila is for the elite [khas], those
who want to advance spiritually through their own efforts. Our publications
are a response for the future, to preserve the teachings. It is meant for a few,
not for the general public [ 'am]. For the masses who come by the thousands
it is enough to know the power of the saints. As the teaching says, you do not
discuss Sufi doctrine with the unlettered masses or anyone who think that
this is all blasphemy” (October 3, 2000, Lahore). In explaining the utility of
books, Chishti Sabiri disciples once again emphasize the distinction between
the rational, discursive book knowledge of the religious scholar ('ilm) and
the intuitive, experiential, esoteric knowledge of the Sufi master (ma'rifa).
For the average reader with an intellectual curiosity about Sufi doctrine, the
silsila’s books offer a useful and informed point of reference. However, for
the spiritual elites (khas)—the select few who seek the guidance of an accom-
plished Sufi shaykh—books are at best an invitation to practice.
From doctrinal tracts and ritual manuals to political and polemical works, I
would argue that Chishti Sabiri texts actually target multiple audiences through
particular rhetorical styles and languages. The primary readership is clearly the
silsila’s own members. Murids view printed texts as vital repositories of the
order’s collective wisdom. At the same time, books also serve as important
heuristic tools. As chapter 4 will demonstrate, texts are fully integrated into
contemporary Chishti Sabiri ritual practice. For individual disciples, the
shaykhs’ writings on doctrine and practice offer a critical source of inspiration
and guidance along the twists and turns of the Sufi path. As a road map and a
litmus test for spiritual development, books complement and clarify the oral
teachings communicated via the central master-disciple relationship.
The contemporary silsila is obviously interested in reaching a much
broader Pakistani audience as well. If not, why publish? Beyond their own
community, the order’s Urdu publications are aimed at a diverse spectrum of
readers who are interested in Sufism, regardless of personal background.
According to the senior disciple who oversees the central publishing house,
Mahfil-i Zauqiyya, in Karachi, “These books are printed with the intention of
spreading the word of Allah among the people. If after reading these books
even one person changes his life for the better, that is more precious to us
than all the treasures of the world. The focus is on the individual, not on the
masses. That is what is important. The books are available to anybody. We
print them not with the intention of making money, but to make them avail-
able to people at the least possible cost so that they can benefit from this as
much as possible” (May 21, 2001, Karachi).104
Despite this openness, the volume of the order’s publications is restricted
by design. Typically, no more than a thousand copies of each text are printed
at a time. Any profits from the sale of books are immediately rolled back into
the system, making the production process a largely self-sustaining enter-
prise. Remarkably, no resources are committed to advertising. In the words
of one murid, “If someone makes an effort to get these books, there are no
restrictions. But marketing is not considered helpful for spiritual develop-

ment” (October 3, 2002, Lahore). Chishti Sabiris assert that the goal is to
communicate with those who are willing to listen, not to convert the critics.
Preservation of the silsila’s historical memory, and not persuasion of Sufism’s
detractors, I was frequently told, is the real motivation. As the following
quote suggests, Chishti Sabiris insist that they are not interested in prosely-
tizing or political diatribe:
These books are not meant to be controversial. They can benefit everybody and
anybody, whether he is from a group that accepts tasawwuf or one that does
not. It is not the way of the holy saints to condemn any sect or any religion or
any particular group of people. Proselytizing is something different altogether.
We are spreading the word of Allah as we understand it, as our shaykhs have
understood it, in the light of the Qur'an and sunna. They understood and
embodied it, and we are continuing that practice. So we do not take an apolo-
getic attitude. If you like it, fine. If you don’t like it, fine. The way of the Sufis
is to bring people closer rather than to divide them. (May 21, 2001, Karachi)
This is an intriguing statement that reveals a careful balancing act. The

Chishti Sabiris critique their conservative counterparts for mixing religion
and politics. They insist that they are beyond polemics. Yet in printing and
disseminating these texts, the silsila purposefully enters the contested public
sphere to stake a claim to Islamic authority and authenticity. Within the com-
bative landscape of today’s Pakistan and Malaysia, such a proactive publishing
campaign can only be seen as an overtly political act.
At yet another level, Chishti Sabiri publications target a much broader
audience, well beyond the order’s traditional locus in South Asia. Following
the precedent established by Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Chishti Sabiri shaykhs
have each written in both Urdu and English. As we have seen, Wahid Bakhsh
in particular made an appeal to disillusioned Westerners in his writings. In the
words of one of the shaykh’s disciples, “He [Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh] used to
tell me that in many places, people would not want to read these books. But
outsiders, people who are thirsty for this knowledge, they might see it in a
more positive way. Especially in the West, people are really longing for this.
It’s missing there, so that is the reason” (September 26, 2001, Kuala
Lumpur). In keeping with this legacy, the Chishti Sabiri order now publishes
a number of texts in English. This includes both the shaykh’s original writings
as well as several translations of their Urdu works. Following precedent, the
silsila continues to operate in multiple linguistic and cultural registers.
The growing transnational profile of Chishti Sabiri publications is most
clearly demonstrated by the concerted efforts of the Malaysian disciples—a
dynamic contingent of Wahid Bakhsh’s disciples that I explore further in
chapter 4. Planting Chishti Sabiri Sufism in Southeast Asian soil, they
recently established an independent printing press in Kuala Lumpur. To date,
A.S. Noordeen Publishers has published four books: an English version of
Wahid Bakhsh’s translation of Kashf al-mahjub, a partial translation of the
malfuzat of Shaykh Sayyid Shah Waris Hasan, an edition of Shahidullah
Faridi’s Inner Aspects of Faith, and Islamic Sufism, a reprint of Wahid

Bakhsh’s lengthy monograph. Though modest in scope and scale, these pub-
lishing efforts are nonetheless remarkable. After all, literature of any kind on
tasawwuf is a rarity in Malaysia where—as in Pakistan—Sufism is a highly
contested tradition and a controversial practice.
Despite Malaysia’s restrictive atmosphere, Chishti Sabiri publications
have begun to draw a local audience. Interestingly, this has included mem-
bers of other local Sufi orders. According to a senior Malaysian disciple,
“There are some Sufi shaykhs here in Malaysia. They are actually now using
these books like textbooks. When they instruct their murids they say, ‘Buy
this book.’ And then they read from it. This is slowly correcting aberrations.
There are no other resources because there is no strong Sufi tradition here
anymore” (October 1, 2001, Kuala Lumpur). At present, the Malaysian
publications are limited to English, though disciples say they intend to even-
tually make them available in Bahasa Malaysia, the national language. In the
words of another Malaysian murid, “When it comes to tasawwuf, the Malays
will look for a book in bahasa. To find a book in tasawwuf in English is
something that for them is, well, strange. They don’t go for it. We tried to
translate them, but translating these books is not so easy. The translator
must be a spiritual person. We arranged for a man in Indonesia to translate
Islamic Sufism, but he made some mistakes. He remarked, ‘I have translated
the work, but I do not agree with it.’ So we didn’t publish it” (September 30,
2001, Kuala Lumpur).
The Malaysians have reached new ground in another vital arena as
well. Since 1996 they have operated a silsila Web site (http://www.
moonovermedina.com). Entitled Moon Over Medina: A Sufi Bookstore,
this virtual bookstore offers Chishti Sabiri publications for sale to global
cybersurfers on the World Wide Web. The site’s main page displays a brief
description of each shaykh’s book, along with a full color photograph of its
cover. A link, More on Sufism, provides short extracts from the texts, along
with a pair of essays in English by Muhammad Zauqi Shah. According to
the site’s manager—a Malay businessman and disciple of Wahid Bakhsh
who was educated in America—most of the current visitors are foreigners.
In his words,
The Web site is quite interesting. I would say the largest proportion [of visitors]
are Americans. They have Christian names. When they submit their orders they
use a Christian name, but sometimes when they send me an e-mail to confirm
their orders some use Muslim names. I’ve had several orders from Switzerland,
and inquiries from Europe, Canada, and Brazil. When I started there were
about ten to fifteen visitors a day. It’s like owning a shop, having people come
in and browse every day. Now it is up to forty people a day, about 1,200 a
month. But of those, only a few buy books.
I added the articles [by Zauqi Shah] on Sufism to the site, and a lot of people
go there to look at them. They also look at the extracts from the books. I do
not accept credit cards, and that is the problem. I just wouldn’t be able to cope
with the volume, because I’m the only one running it. I post the books
myself—I go to the post office and collect the checks myself. It doesn’t make
any money, just enough to cover the fees. (October 1, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
The Internet offers a new platform to communicate Chishti Sabiri

identity to a potentially vast global audience. By launching into cyberspace,
the silsila has joined a growing movement. In the twenty-first century, tech-
savvy Muslims in diverse cultural settings are rapidly adapting to digital
technology, much as their predecessors once capitalized on the advent of the
printing press. As Jon Anderson notes, “They range from political activists
to Sufi orders, from mobilization to witness. They both recruit and propa-
gandize, bringing their issues into a wider, already public sphere in some
cases but in others carving out a new one that encompasses or repackages
existing ones, compelling dialogue by leveraging forms of communication
that reshape the social field . . . Islam on the Internet is first a story of
new interpreters, newly emboldened by confidence in and command of the
channel.”105 While at present the Internet remains accessible only to a priv-
ileged core of educated, middle-class professionals with access to computers,
it has the potential to radically transform the boundaries of public discursive
space. “New forms of communication and their increased rapidity allow
‘peripheries’ and audiences to talk back and can infuse new life to local and
regional traditions,” argues Eickelman. “The new political geography of
communications may actually facilitate pluralism. In the sense that symbolic
and political connections across national and other political boundaries
are encouraged, conventional understandings of ‘external’ and ‘internal’
become increasingly blurred.”106 In theory and increasingly in practice, the
Internet expands networks of knowledge and builds new communities,
unbound by physical space, gender boundaries, and national borders. For
these reasons, it is a useful tool for the Chishti Sabiri order’s ongoing efforts
to expand its reach beyond South Asia.
In Mullahs on the Mainframe, Jonah Blank demonstrates how the Daudi
Bohra communities of Bombay and Karachi have accommodated to the
tectonic shifts of global modernity. These dynamic South Asian Shi’a, he
notes, are distinguished by “the holistic nature of their modernization.”
They “regard modern technology (and its accompanying ease of societal
communication) as something beneficial even on its own merits . . . New
technologies are not adopted solely for the sake of novelty, but anything that
brings the community closer—or simply makes life easier—is heartily encour-
aged.”107 A similar dynamic is seen among twenty-first-century fundamental-
ist movements—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim alike—who make use of
technology to publicize their own critiques of modernism.108 While employing
the medium, they reject the message. I would argue that this is equally true
of the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order. Amid the cacophonous public
debates over Islamic orthodoxy, Chishti Sabiris have proved adept at using
new technologies to amplify their defense of Sufi orthodoxy. In multiple loca-
tions, languages, and forums, today’s silsila employs mass media to explain
tradition, articulate identity, and expand the boundaries of community.
Conclusion
The writings of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani imagine a distinct Indo-Muslim Sufi identity: a shari'a-
minded and socially engaged Sufism, firmly rooted in South Asian tradition
but responsive to the challenges of postcolonial modernity. Throughout their
diverse literary corpus, the shaykhs demonstrate a keen awareness of Sufism’s
multiple dimensions—orthodoxy and orthopraxy, doctrine and ritual, piety
and politics, texts and contexts. They employ diverse rhetorical devices (the
English language, scientific, and technical vocabulary) and multiple media
(books, essays, and journals) to communicate Sufi tradition to a new audi-
ence (beyond the inner circle of murids whose training remained their pri-
mary concern). Their vision frames Sufism as the quintessential expression of
Islamic orthodoxy. In the transition from the colonial to postcolonial age, the
shaykhs mark the continuity of doctrinal teachings and ritual practices at the
heart of Chishti Sabiri identity as a bulwark against Sufism’s critics and a
panacea for Pakistan’s social ills.
In many ways, the shaykhs’ writing project is not unique. As we have seen,
their emphasis on social activism consciously mirrors the legacy of their nine-
teenth-century Chishti Sabiri predecessors. On a wider level, their work also
recalls that of the Egyptian reformist, activist and mufti of al-Azhar,
Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), whose interpretation of Islamic tradition
emphasized “a moral earnestness and a concern with interiorization of the
faith that would have satisfied al-Ghazali.”109 The Chishti Sabiri writing proj-
ect even resembles the efforts of their 'ulama counterparts who aimed to
“authoritatively represent an ‘authentic’ Islamic tradition in its richness,
depth, and continuity” by portraying themselves as the guardians of a “con-
tinuous, lived heritage that connects to the past and the present.”110 What
distinguishes the writing of this trio of modern Chishti Sabiri shaykhs, how-
ever, is the distinct way they conflated Sufi identity and Pakistani national
identity. In their alternative reading of history, Sufism is both the essence of
Islamic orthodoxy and the only viable antidote to Pakistan’s crisis of iden-
tity—a middle way between the extremes of Islamism on the one hand and
Westernization on the other.
These three twentieth-century Sufi masters certainly did not see them-
selves as polemicists or ideologues. They emphasized instead their roles as
spiritual teachers, and this is how they are remembered within the Chishti
Sabiri order to this day. Yet a survey of their collective writings shows that the
shaykhs did not shy away from the mundane and messy world of politics. On
the whole, their literary legacy runs counter to the prevalent Orientalist
stereotypes of Sufism’s devolution, rigidity, and intellectual stasis. It also con-
firms that Sufism simply cannot be separated from the everyday practices of
social and political life.
An assessment of the contemporary Chishti Sabiri writing project raises a
host of broader issues as well—far-reaching questions that continue to pre-
occupy postcolonial scholarship: How free is the postcolonial subject? Are
nationalist and modernist discourses hegemonic, or is there still space for

individual agency? At the level of embodied practice, beyond the long arm of
the state, are independent, creative expressions of religious identity possible?
Among scholars there has been no consensus of opinion regarding these
complex issues. For some, such as Gayatri Spivak, the legacy of colonial
discourse is hegemonic and therefore effectively silences the voice of the
colonized subject. The subaltern cannot speak.111 Other scholars have argued
that no discourse is so totalizing as to erase the potential of individual
agency. Though marginalized and exploited—physically, materially, and
psychologically—by systems of coercion and control individuals are never
fully silenced or controlled. “In historical fact, the Orient is never reduced to
silence,” writes Sudipta Kaviraj, “indeed, it constantly gives vent to its resent-
ment against colonialism through an enormous range of expressions from
insults, dishonesty, graft, opportunism, gossip, to social reform, political pro-
grams, mass mobilizations, movements, but also serious historical reflec-
tion.”112 According to this school of thought, there is always a gap between
the ideology and institutions of the state and the localized experience of
everyday social practice. As Homi Bhahbha argues, this “contradictory and
ambivalent space of enunciation” allows for the possibility of creative resist-
ance to state hegemony.113 In this sense, the postcolonial subject remains free
to reinvent her/himself.
In my view, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani provide further evidence of this discursive freedom. In
both its scope and scale, the shaykh’s literary legacy confirms the capacity of
the postcolonial subject not only to speak—but to think, read, and write, crit-
ically and creatively, as well. In the face of pervasive social and political
change, these twentieth-century Sufi masters mounted a spirited defense of
Sufi tradition. As social critics and political commentators, they engaged in a
creative reformulation of Chishti Sabiri identity. Their diverse writings artic-
ulate an old message in a new medium. In doing so, they demonstrate the
fluidity of identity and the malleability of tradition. Today, the shaykh’s legacy
continues to guide and inspire a new generation of disciples. In Pakistan and
Malaysia, Chishti Sabiris employ the instruments of mass media to inscribe
and articulate Sufi identity for a new millennium.
This chapter has explored Sufism as a discursive tradition, imagined and
inscribed in texts. To fully understand how contemporary Chishti Sabiri
identity is expressed and experienced, however, we need to go beyond the
written word. In the book’s remaining chapters, I turn from the outward to
the inward dimensions of Sufism in order to reveal the heart and soul of
Chishti Sabiri practice: ritual practice. Focusing on the lived experiences and
personal stories of individual disciples, chapter 4 examines today’s Chishti
Sabiri order as a teaching community centered on the intimate and intense
master-disciple relationship.
Chapter 4
Teaching Sufism: N etworks of

Community and D iscipleship
Sufis write books, some of them polemical and political. Yet the heart of the
Chishti Sabiri tradition remains firmly grounded in an interpersonal teaching
network centered on the fundamental master-disciple (pir-murid) relation-
ship. This chapter turns from texts to ethnographic contexts to explore how
knowledge is transmitted within the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order. By
quoting liberally from personal interviews, I aim to allow murids to articulate
their own experiences and understanding of the Sufi path. The words of a
senior murid—a middle-aged, middle-class, male Pakistani who is a father
and husband, a businessman and a Sufi adept—offer an appropriate entry
point into this worldview:
Our antennas are so deeply attuned to the material world that we rarely tune in
to the spiritual transmitter. There is a whole world there that directly impacts
this material world, what we are doing here. Allah Most High is the source of
the spiritual transmission. He is on 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day. If
you want to find this frequency, you must join a Sufi order [tariqa]. The shaykh
is your antenna. (October 15, 2000, Lahore)
Spiritual insight, this disciple suggests, requires the altering of perspective

and the cultivation of awareness. The self must realigned toward the Divine
Other. This process of self-fashioning, he insists, is most effectively channeled
through a Sufi order and amplified under the tutelage of a spiritual master. In
the absence of proper guidance, the message remains muted. The language
in this evocative description is revealing. The abundance of technological
metaphors reflects the worldview of contemporary Chishti Sabiri devotees
who are fully enmeshed in the complexities and contradictions of the
mundane world of twenty-first-century life. At the same time, they maintain
a discursive tradition and ritual discipline that both links them to a sacralized
Islamic past and sacralizes the living present.
Though marked by its distinctive South Asian roots, the Chishti Sabiri
order has demonstrated a remarkable vibrancy, dynamism, and adaptability
while expanding into new technological, geographical, and cultural spheres.
For disciples living in twenty-first-century Pakistan, Malaysia, and beyond,
the silsila functions on multiple levels simultaneously. In this chapter, I
explore three interdependent dimensions of Chishti Sabiri identity:
1. The silsila as a spiritual pedigree. The Chishti Sabiri order is a spiritual

community grounded in sacred history and shared genealogy. The current
generation is linked to its antecedents through an unbroken chain of author-
ity that collapses the rigid boundaries between the remembered past and the
living present. Among contemporary disciples, stories about the lives of pre-
vious Sufi exemplars are memorialized in texts and continuously recirculated
in a network of oral narratives. In Chishti Sabiri practice, this relationship
with past masters is also confirmed through dreams and visionary experi-
ences. Within the order’s communal network, the teaching shaykh serves as
the living embodiment of all his predecessors—the heir to the legacy of the
paradigmatic Sufi, the Prophet Muhammad.
2. The silsila as a teaching network. Chishti Sabiri identity is forged
through didactic techniques of mental and bodily discipline, a rigorous ritual
praxis informed by a comprehensive epistemology and a detailed theory of
subjectivity. The continuity of the order’s networks of knowledge and prac-
tice rests on the hierarchical yet intimate bond between master and disciple.
At the same time, Chishti Sabiri murids provide each other with a horizontal
support system. This supplementary source of practical knowledge both
complements and clarifies the vertical pir-murid teaching relationship.
3. The silsila as a social nexus. Contemporary Chishti Sabiri disciples are
bound together in webs of experience and identity via their common ties to
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs. Beyond the rigors of the Sufi path, these linkages
impact every dimension of a murid’s social life. Disciples share deep personal
friendships, and extended families are connected through dynamic interper-
sonal networks, often cemented by marriage. These relationships are fre-
quently passed down from generation to generation, ensuring the continuity
and strength of Chishti Sabiri tradition.
Together, these interlocking networks constitute the Chishti Sabiri order

as an alternative locus of Islamic piety: a Sufi spiritual brotherhood cemented
in shared values, ethics, ritual practices, and historical perspective. Chishti
Sabiri identity rests on a symbiotic balance between the individual seeker and
the broader community of adepts. Under the tutelage of a shaykh, a disciple’s
body and mind are systematically reshaped through disciplined ritual prac-
tices. While spiritual progress ultimately depends on individual action and
personal responsibility, the Sufi subject is molded within the overarching
framework of a public, communal network. Even as he/she travels the inner
path, each disciple benefits from the collective wisdom and support of fellow
murids. In the end, this system of knowledge and practice engenders a
Teaching Sufism 131
private, moral self that is, at the same time, imbued with a powerful sense of
a shared, communal identity.
In everyday practice, the relations between the Chishti Sabiri shaykh and
individual murids are mediated by an elaborate matrix of rules of conduct
that fall under the rubric of adab. Adab is a multivalent concept, pervasive
yet difficult to define. It encompasses everything from etiquette and deco-
rum to moral character and interpersonal ethics. Adab is both the measuring
stick of propriety, civility, and sophistication and the grease that oils the
machinery of social life. As historian Barbara Metcalf notes, “[A]dab may
‘mean’ correct outer behavior, but it is understood as both cause of and
then, reciprocally, fruit of one’s inner self. Knowing, doing, and being are
inescapably one.”1 Encompassing both external codes of social behavior and
the inner mechanics of personal transformation, adab can be thought of as
both a noun and a verb.
Adab has a particular resonance in Sufi theory and practice. According to
the well-known Arabic adage, “All of Sufism is adab” (al-tasawwuf kulluhu
al-adab). Time and again during interviews, Chishti Sabiri disciples high-
lighted the distinction between outer/exoteric (zahiri) and inner/esoteric
(batini) dimensions of knowledge and experience. As the science of the
heart, I was often told, Sufism aims at a balance between these two realms—
the cultivation of a private, moral self goes hand in hand with public displays
of virtue. The semantic parallels between adab and suluk (the Sufi “path”)
highlight this reciprocity. At one level, suluk means “journey,” “road,” or
“way.” Like adab, however, it also connotes “behavior,” “conduct,” or “civil-
ity.” Quite literally, the Sufi’s interior journey and outward actions are inex-
tricably intertwined.
This constant emphasis on both inner moral perfection and outward social
decorum is yet another theme that links the Chishti Sabiri silsila with its
premodern antecedents. Indeed, Sufi models of public morality and ethical
practice have had a profound and lasting impact on Muslim social life across
the historical and cultural spectrum of the Islamic world. As Ernst and
Lawrence note, “In this sense, one should acknowledge the Sufi orders,
including the Chishtiyya, as bellwethers for society as a whole. They pro-
jected not merely mystical insights for like-minded mystics, but practical
points of responsible behavior, which had an ethical appeal to Muslims from
numerous classes and professions in the major urban areas of the Muslim
world.”2 For today’s Chishti Sabiris, the rules of adab continue to shape their
interactions with the spiritual master, with their fellow disciples, and with
society at large.
This chapter explores the adab of contemporary Chishti Sabiri master-
disciple relations through an ethnographic lens. My analysis draws upon
extensive interviews with murids in both Pakistan and Malaysia in an attempt
to answer a series of questions: Who are these contemporary murids? How
are the networks that bind adepts to their shaykhs and to each other consti-
tuted? How do disciples understand and articulate their own Chishti Sabiri
identity? How are tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions mediated and
resolved? In what ways do these networks of knowledge and practice confirm

or contradict premodern traditions? On the whole, this inquiry is less con-
cerned with the ideals of Sufi doctrine than with the realities of everyday, ordi-
nary Sufi practice. My aim is to trace how contemporary Chishti Sabiri murids
themselves experience and explain the multilayered teaching networks through
which Sufi knowledge is transmitted and performed. This survey of the
mechanics of master-disciple relations serves as a springboard for a detailed
ethnography of contemporary Chishti Sabiri ritual practices in chapter 5. For
twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri adepts, spiritual companionship and ritual
performance are the bedrock of Islamic faith. In an era of momentous social
change, the silsila’s teaching networks anchor religious identity, uniting today’s
disciples with a shared sense of meaning, purpose and belonging.
From Karachi to Kuala Lumpur:

Chishti Sabiri Disciples
As Chishti Sabiri teaching shaykhs, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah
Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani each led his own independent coterie
of disciples. Under the guidance of Shaykh Siraj 'Ali Muhammad—the desig-
nated successor (khalifa) of Shahidullah Faridi and, at presently, the order’s
only teaching shaykh—the order maintains its dynamism and vitality. The
silsila continues to adapt to Pakistan’s changing cultural landscape while
expanding beyond the boundaries of South Asia. While the majority of today’s
Chishti Sabiri disciples are Pakistani, there is a significant and growing contin-
gent of foreigners as well: Malaysians, South Africans, and Europeans. The
silsila is distinguished from many other Sufi orders by the numbers and promi-
nence of its female disciples. Women are full participants in all the order’s rit-
ual activities, and select senior female disciples are renowned for their
advanced spiritual status and authority. My own interviews and observations
confirmed what murids often told me: Chishti Sabiri shaykhs are fully accessi-
ble to women, and treat their female disciples as the spiritual equals of their
male counterparts.3 As a collective whole, the contemporary Chishti Sabiri
order is as diverse as it is dynamic. Its overall scale, however, is difficult to
assess. The silisla does not maintain public murid registers, and, as disciples
note, Chishti Sabiri shaykhs as a rule never openly talk about their followers. In
the absence of verifiable data, estimates of the total numbers of contemporary
disciples vary. Anecdotal evidence and my own informal calculations suggest
that Chishti Sabiri murids certainly number in the thousands. Yet I would also
suggest that it is extremely misleading to measure the order’s impact by
counting heads. With its diverse publications and growing interpersonal
networks, today’s Chishti Sabiri silsila has a public profile that transcends the
limits of its demographic and geographic boundaries.
In everyday practice the interactions between Shaykh Siraj 'Ali and his
disciples take place mostly in private sessions. As an outsider, I was not often
privy to these intimate, face-to-face exchanges. Even so, I did learn a great
deal about the mechanics of pir-murid relations during my fieldwork
Teaching Sufism 133
through extensive interviews with disciples and direct observation of the

silsila’s public rituals. This included several visits to the weekly gatherings
with Shaykh Siraj 'Ali in Karachi, frequent attendance at the zikr circles in
Lahore, and, most significantly, numerous pilgrimages in the company of
murids to Sufi shrine complexes in Pakistan for the annual death anniversaries
('urs) of celebrated Chishti saints. My analysis of this rich ethnographic mate-
rial also draws on the shaykhs’ published writings as well as the personal letters
that many murids shared with me.
Who are these Chishti Sabiri disciples? As individuals, murids vary in the
level of their commitment to (and engagement with) the silsila. At the very
center of the order’s life is an elite inner circle of several hundred disciples that
include men and women, Pakistanis as well as foreigners. They are distin-
guished by their dedication to the rigors of suluk and active involvement in the
order’s myriad ritual activities. Though there are prominent exceptions to the
rule, this inner core fits a general profile: they are mostly educated, middle-
class, urban professionals. With the exception of several female Shi'a murids,
they are also predominantly Sunni. Despite this imbalance, Chishti Sabiris
insist that Sufi allegiances ultimately trump any divisions between Shi'a and
Sunni. This is a frequent mantra in the public writings and private teachings of
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs as well. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani in particular often
downplayed Islam’s sectarian divisions as nothing more than divisive, political
posturing. According to a female disciple of Shi'i background,
Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh used to get angry when people talked about “Sunni” or
“Shi'a.” He used to say that this was just a political conflict. The reason why
'Ali was not made caliph was that he was too involved in his spiritual devotions.
He was the lion of Allah. He cared nothing for the world. He was a true Sufi
and was never interested in the caliphate. (November 14, 2000, Islamabad)
While highlighting 'Ali’s distinct piety and lofty spiritual status, this state-
ment essentially confirms the normative Sunni reading of Islamic history.
Even so, among Chishti Sabiri murids there is a deep and abiding respect for
the Prophet’s family and a vehement rejection of narrow, exclusive sectarian
identities. This is not surprising since the Chishti Sabiri order’s genealogy is
traced to the Prophet Muhammad via his cousin and son-in-law 'Ali.4
Mirroring the legacy of their shaykhs, the core group of Chishti Sabiri dis-
ciples is well acquainted with the instruments and ideology of modernity.
Murids move fluidly between multiple epistemological, linguistic, and geo-
graphical universes. Many have extensive networks of family and friends liv-
ing in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, England, Canada, and the United
States. While numerous disciples come from extended families with a long
history of Sufi affiliations, others were introduced to the silsila through
interpersonal networks, word of mouth, and even dreams. Shaykh Siraj 'Ali
Muhammad embodies a typical pattern. A fourth generation Chishti Sabiri,
he was a graduate of the prestigious Pakistani Air Force Academy. Until his
recent retirement, he was also a senior international pilot for Pakistan
International Airlines. The shaykh is multilingual, a voracious reader, a

computer expert and technophile, and well versed in contemporary social,
cultural, and political affairs. He travels frequently, both within Pakistan to
meet with his own Sufi disciples and abroad to visit a number of relatives
currently living in both Canada and the United States.
In keeping with broad demographic patterns, the Pakistani murids are
ethnically diverse. The order primarily comprises ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis,
along with a smaller representation of Pathans from the Northwest Frontier
Province. While most disciples are multilingual—fluent in various regional
languages—the standard medium of exchange among Pakistani disciples is
Urdu. Like Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah, a significant number of murids
are immigrants (muhajirs) whose families left their ancestral homes in India
in the decades surrounding Partition and political independence in 1947.
Prominent disciples trace their family lineages to Delhi, Bhopal, and
Lucknow in particular. In contemporary Pakistan, the majority of Chishti
Sabiris live and work in the vicinity of major urban centers, especially Karachi,
Lahore, Multan, and Islamabad. Most—though certainly not all—disciples
are distinguished by socioeconomic status, profession, and educational back-
ground. Among their ranks are educators, engineers, publishers, bankers,
computer programmers, medical professionals, technocrats, and business-
men. A number of prominent murids have advanced professional degrees, in
several cases from European and American universities. Significantly, several
senior male disciples have personal and professional links to the Pakistani mil-
itary—a precedent established by both Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
and Shaykh Siraj 'Ali Muhammad.
Of course, not all contemporary disciples are Pakistani. As we have seen,
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs have long welcomed both foreign Muslims and
Western converts into the fold. Among the most influential of these foreign
disciples is a dynamic group of Malaysian murids. During my research, I fre-
quently met these Malaysian disciples at pilgrimage sites in Pakistan. I also
traveled to Malaysia for five weeks where I interacted with many of them in
and around the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. With one exception—a novice
female murid of Shaykh Siraj 'Ali—they are all the disciples of Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani. Remarkably, these Malaysian murids all attribute their
introduction to the silsila to a single individual: a medical doctor from the
northern state of Kalantan who joined the Chishti Sabiri order in 1979 while
studying in Karachi. Following his lead, several other Malaysian students who
were at the time studying in Pakistan also joined the silsila. Over time this
interpersonal network has steadily grown, and today there is a core group of
nearly one hundred Malaysian disciples.
During his lifetime, Wahid Bakhsh maintained contact with this group via
an active correspondence. He also traveled to Malaysia on two occasions late
in life—in December 1990 and August 1994—visiting his disciples for several
weeks on each visit. Since the shaykh’s death in 1995, the Malaysian murids
have maintained this connection. They continue their own zikr circles in
Kuala Lumpur, and many of them travel frequently to Pakistan and India for
Teaching Sufism 135
pilgrimage. As we saw in chapter 3, the Malaysian’s publication efforts have

proved instrumental in spreading the Chishti Sabiri message across the
Indian Ocean and into cyberspace. Overall, the order’s spread into Southeast
Asia signals an important shift in its makeup and modus operandi. While the
Chishti Sabiri silsila has always adapted to change, its transplantation into
entirely new geographical and cultural contexts marks a radical break with
historical precedent.
Like their Pakistani counterparts, the Malaysian murids—both men and
women—are mostly well-educated, middle-class, urban professionals. While
the majority are ethnic Malay Muslims, their numbers include a significant
contingent of Chinese and Indian converts. Most Malaysian disciples are
multilingual, though with their shaykhs and Pakistani peers they normally
speak English. This plurality prompts a series of further questions: Why
would a Pakistani subbranch of a distinctly South Asian Sufi order appeal to
Southeast Asians? How do these Malaysian murids make sense of the central-
ity of Pakistan and a Pakistani identity in their shaykh’s writings? Does the
physical distance—to say nothing of the cultural and national divisions—
never present a problem? In interviews, Malaysian murids invariably respond
to such questions by insisting that the personal bond with Shaykh Wahid
Bakhsh and their fellow murids ultimately transcends all other boundaries. In
the words of a senior Malaysian disciple,
He [Wahid Bakhsh] was our guide, a spiritual master. He guided people to

God, through love and by taking a deep interest in them. It never mattered that
he was Pakistani. There was never any doubt about that at all. He was just a
teacher. He worked towards attracting people to God. There was no politics.
(September 27, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
This is an apt summation of the Sufi pir-murid relationship. It suggests that

even as the silsila’s transnational reach expands, the fundamental bond
between master and disciple continues to cement Chishti Sabiri identity.
From Karachi to Kuala Lumpur, the background of contemporary Chishti
Sabiri stands in sharp contrast to the prevalent stereotypes of Sufi practition-
ers. On both sides of the Indian Ocean, the critics of Sufism often dismiss the
tradition as a backwater for marginalized, rural, and uneducated Muslims in
an attempt to denigrate Sufi allegiances and practices. A closer look at today’s
Chishti Sabiri silsila, however, presents a different picture altogether. In both
Pakistan and Malaysia, murids highlight the centrality of their Sufi identity in
their busy, complex lives. Disciples emphasize the importance—and
difficulty—of balancing the mundane demands of the world (dunya) with the
rigors of religious practice (din). In the words of a young Pakistani murid,
Islam is the only religion that balances your religion and your earthly life. This
means that you must be a responsible family member, give attention to your
family, earn a good livelihood, a reasonable livelihood—and, at the same time,
observe your religious duties. [Christian] priests spend most of their lives
confined to churches. A monk remains a monk until the day he dies. In fact,
those religions are very strict, unlike Islam. In Islam it [monastic life] is strictly
forbidden. (November 8, 2000, Lahore)
For today’s Chishti Sabiris, it is precisely the imperative for a direct engagement
with ordinary, everyday life that distinguishes Islam from other faiths and
Sufism from other practices.
Chishti Sabiris view the balancing of din and dunya as a central marker of
their Sufi identity. Even so, they openly acknowledge that juggling the
demands of worldly life and spiritual devotion is no simple matter. In both
Pakistan and Malaysia, I often heard murids voice common concerns—from
long hours at the office, to the increasing demands of time, money, and fam-
ily life, to incessant worries about political instability and economic uncer-
tainty. Chishti Sabiri teachings encourage disciples to approach these
struggles as a form of religious practice. According to Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh,
worldly troubles are in fact an essential part of Sufi training. In a personal
letter to a female disciple in Malaysia, the shaykh writes,
Nothing happens in the world without the will of Allah Almighty. Worries and
difficulties are thrown in our way as tests and trials by the great taskmaster, not
to harm us but to purify us and elevate us. He wants us, His near ones and dear
ones, to develop strong characters and the utmost patience to be able to climb
upwards. He tries us by hardships, difficulties, poverty and disease. He takes us
to the bursting point, but does not allow us to burst . . . These are His ways of
loving His dear ones. The great shaykhs love and welcome this harshness on the
part of Divine Beloved.5
The path to God, Wahid Bakhsh insists, goes straight through the
world; there are no shortcuts. The world may be seductive or destructive, but
spiritual wisdom is impossible in the absence of patience, endurance, and
equanimity.
Disciples often point to the example of the Prophet Muhammad when
discussing the balance between din and dunya. As the paradigmatic Sufi, the
Prophet’s example of engaging the world as an exercise of spiritual discipline
is instructive. In the words of a young disciple, a French convert who married
the granddaughter of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh and who now lives with his
family in Karachi,
We are not sadhus [Hindu ascetics], doing twenty-four hours of meditation a

day. We have to manage this life. We have to go to work, and afterwards we
have to give time to our children and wives, as the Prophet Muhammad, God
bless him and grant him salvation, showed us. You cannot just come back from
work and go to the shrine or remain in meditation. That is not correct, and it
is not the Sufi path (suluk). Suluk is the entire thing, you see. It involves
dunya—making money, taking care of your family, meeting with people. And it
is also ritual worship ('ibadat), your prayers, your meditation, your zikr. All
these things together are suluk. It is these things that bring you near to Allah.
The point is to struggle. (September 2, 2001, Karachi)
Teaching Sufism 137
Murids also look to the shaykhs of their own silsila for guidance and inspira-
tion in their daily lives. Stories of Chishti Sabiri masters as well as other
famous premodern Sufi luminaries are constantly circulated among disciples.
According to a female Pakistani murid, the shaykhs’ lives exemplify Sufi piety
and social etiquette in action: “In Islam you must fulfill all your obligations,
all your duties in this world, in a very proper way. All these saints, Hazrat
Waris Hasan Shah Sahab, Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab, Hazrat Shahidullah
Sahab, Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh, Hazrat Siraj Sahab, they all did their jobs, they
went to schools and universities. And besides fulfilling their worldly duties,
their religious discipline ('ibadat) was something beautiful, a bond between
them and God. They really practiced what they preached” (June 17, 2001,
Lahore).
Nowhere is this emphasis on balancing din and dunya more apparent than
in the prevailing Chishti Sabiri attitude toward education. Disciples often
distinguish between rational, discursive, worldly knowledge ('ilm) and the
intuitive, experiential knowledge (ma'rifa) gained through the rigors of
spiritual practice.6 Both are seen as absolutely essential for an individual’s
overall development. The coupling of practical, technical knowledge with the
rigors of Sufi training is recognized as a key component of the shaykhs’ teach-
ings. As a result, disciples typically encourage their own sons and daughters
to pursue a secular education while maintaining their religious devotions.
The children of a number of prominent Chishti Sabiri adepts have in fact
been encouraged to pursue their studies in Western universities. Many have
gone on to advanced degrees in engineering, computer science, accounting,
and finance, both at home and abroad. Disciples recognize the secular
university as the bastion of 'ilm, a place to develop the practical, professional
skills needed for worldly success. Ma'rifa, by contrast, is preserved and
perpetuated only through the networks of knowledge and ritual practice
maintained under the watchful guidance of a Sufi shaykh.
When asked, most Chishti Sabiri disciples acknowledge the merits of a
more traditional religious education. They view the madrasa as an important
symbol of Muslim identity—the bastion of the long history of intellectual
and scholarly rigor in Islamic civilization. Madrasas serve a vital social func-
tion as repositories of religious learning and social welfare centers, disciples
insist. Even so, following the precedent of their own spiritual mentors, con-
temporary Chishti Sabiri disciples do not typically attend madrasas them-
selves. The words of a highly respected Pakistani disciple—a man who
studied for a doctoral degree in engineering in the United States and whose
daughter attended university abroad—are revealing:
Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh once remarked that we would have lost our entire
religious education system to Western education had it not been for these
madrasas. A madrasa is suitable for a religious education, for producing
hafiz [experts who have memorized the Qur'an], to ensure that the mosques
are run and that people learn hadith [traditions about the Prophet
Muhammad]. Madrasas are popular because the have-nots of the community
send their children there for food, shelter, and education. There is a steady
stream of students coming in. They cannot do anything else. Either they work
as tea stall boys or auto shop boys. Some parents think they should study, and
maybe take it up as a profession by becoming a preacher at a local mosque. But
this is not encouraged for people who are in the silsila and mostly come from
middle-class, educated families. (August 26, 2001, Lahore)
There is, as this quote suggests, an underlying elitism to Chishti Sabiri views
on education and the pursuit of knowledge. The madrasa is viewed as an
appropriate outlet for training in the traditional Islamic sciences, particularly
for the socially marginalized who lack other career options. For those with
privileged access to the teachings of a Sufi shaykh, however, madrasa training
is seen as superfluous.
Significantly, there is a prominent exception to this general rule. Chishti
Sabiri shaykhs typically encourage their non-Pakistani disciples to study for a
short period in a madrasa. This has been the case for Western converts and
foreign Muslims alike. For these newcomers, a short stint in madrasa is seen
as an invaluable tutorial on the basics of Muslim history, theology, and reli-
gious life—a necessary prerequisite for entry into the rigors of the Sufi path.
This practice was firmly established by Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi who drew a
large number of foreigners into the order in Karachi during the 1970s.
According to one of the shaykh’s European disciples, “When you convert to
Islam, the first thing the shaykh tells you is to learn Arabic, hadith, and fiqh.
It is meant to guide you, so that you know what to do in various aspects of
life. This is the only thing they want. They don’t want you to become an
'alim [religious scholar]. If you do become one, wonderful. If you can use
this knowledge, why not? But the main aim of sending you to madrasa is
simply to guide you in life” (September 2, 2001, Karachi).
Amid all its diversity, the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order is a distinct
corporate institution—a moral community, united by the rules of adab and
the discipline of ritual practice. Despite their significant individual differ-
ences, Pakistani, Malaysian, and foreign murids share a deep sense of
collective identity. This bond is communicated through a common set
of values and a standard code of behavior. In both public and private
settings—at home, at work, or among their fellow murids—Chishti Sabiri
men, women, and children are taught to carry themselves with a particular
style. Adab impacts their physical comportment, the manner of their dress
and speech, and in the way they interact with others. In the succinct words
of a prominent Pakistani disciple, “Everyone in this silsila carries the stamp
of the group, regardless of their own personal background” (October 7,
2000, Lahore). This pervasive ethos emerges from the central axis of
Chishti Sabiri identity: the master-disciple relationship. As the living heir to
the silsila’s spiritual ancestors and the Prophet Muhammad himself, the
Chishti Sabiri spiritual master leads by example. In the end, it is the teach-
ing shaykh who initiates novice disciples into the silsila’s networks of knowl-
edge and practice.
Teaching Sufism 139
The Sufi Master-Disciple Relationship

Sufi epistemology emerges from a Qur'anic worldview. Invoking the Qur'an
(57:3), Sufis describe God as “the first, the last, the outer, the inner.” Sufi
theorists have long distinguished between the outward (zahir) and inward
(batin) dimensions of reality. A well-known Sufi formula uses a threefold
rhyming structure to distinguish between the outward form of Islamic law
(shari'a), the inner approach of the Sufi path (tariqa), and the ultimate real-
ity of God (haqiqa). As Ernst notes,
This kind of rhetorical formula permitted Sufis to position their distinctive

practices as the internalization of the external rituals of Muslim religious life.
Sufism was a way to proceed from ordinary external life to find the inner reality
of God. This hierarchical grading of reality amounts to a theory of esotericism;
as the Qur'an states (39:9), “Are those who know equal to those who do not
know?” It is important to recognize that this pervasive metaphor of inner
reality and knowledge requires the external forms of religion to make any sense
at all. The self-articulation of Sufism in this way presupposed the norms of
Islamic tradition at the same time that it pointed beyond the limitations of
those conventions.7
Shari'a, tariqa, and haqiqa represent hierarchical yet interdependent levels of

awareness and experience. This typology, in turn, mirrors the Sufi adept’s
inner journey toward self-realization, a path that grows narrower and steeper
as it approaches the goal: the existential experience of the oneness of God
(tawhid).
Sufi training aims at nothing less than the remaking of the self. Its ritual
practices are designed to subdue the ego while purifying the body, mind, and
heart. In this system, spiritual growth is measured by both inner states of
awareness and outer displays of pious behavior. According to a well-known
tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, “The shari'a are my words [aqwali],
the tariqa are my actions [a'mali], and the haqiqa is my interior states
[ahwali].”8 Early Sufi theoreticians translated their own spiritual experiences
into a sophisticated and nuanced psychology based on a tripartite division
between the nafs (the “soul” or lower “ego-self”), qalb (“heart”), and ruh
(“spirit”). This tripartite paradigm emerged with the Qur'anic commentary
of Ja'far al-Sadiq (d. 765) and was later appropriated by such spiritual lumi-
naries as al-Muhasibi (d. 857), Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. 877), al-Hakim al-
Tirmidhi (d.~905), al-Junayd (d. 910), and al-Qushayri (d. 1074). These
Sufi theorists described the arduous path to gnosis as the experience of vari-
ous states (hal, plural ahwal) and stations (maqam, plural maqamat). In clas-
sical Sufi doctrine, ahwal are understood as sudden flashes of insight and
clarity. These moments of illumination are gifts from God. They stand in
contrast with maqamat: a series of discrete psychological and ethical qualities
that the adept attains only through his/her own determined efforts. The Sufi
spiritual journey is not for the faint of heart. Progress demands absolute
sincerity (ikhlas), unwavering patience (sabr), relentless striving (mujahida),
and, most importantly, boundless love ('ishq). For a select few, the journey
culminates in the states of fana' (annihilation of self) and ultimately baqa'
(permanence in God).
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs echo these classic formulations on Sufi psychology
and suluk. In an essay entitled “The Spiritual Psychology of Islam” Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi adopts an informal idiom to liken the spiritual heart
(qalb) to the ruler of a country. This king is advised by two combative min-
isters: a saintly and ascetic man of God (ruh); and a greedy, proud, and
cunning man (nafs), obsessed with the fame, wealth, and defense of the
country. In the shaykh’s words, “Man, who is the ruler of his own little
kingdom, has to choose between the admonition of the unworldly and
God-oriented spiritual soul [ruh] and the urging of the concupiscent self
[nafs], and find the way to justice in which the rights of both are main-
tained. This choice leads to a resolve, and the resolve displays itself in out-
ward action.”9 Shahidullah’s metaphor outlines the contours of spiritual
jihad, highlighting the central role of human free will in the Sufi quest.
In this system, human beings are morally responsible for their own actions;
in the end, the decisions individuals make dictate their fate in this world
and the next.
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs also distinguish between multiple gradations of
knowledge and experience. Drawing on a familiar typology, Wahid Bakhsh
Sial Rabbani traces three distinct levels: 'Ilm al-yaqin (cognitive knowl-
edge), 'Ayn al-yaqin (sensory knowledge), and Haqq al-yaqin (true, or
intuitive, knowledge). In the shaykh’s words, “The difference [between
them] can be explained by the analogy of the degrees of faith or belief in
fire. One who has not seen fire can be told that it burns. His belief in fire
or its burning quality would be of the category of belief through the law of
evidence. It is known as 'Ilm al-yaqin in Islam. If he sees with his own eyes
fire burning wood, his belief in fire would be of the degree of 'Ayn al-
yaqin. But if he puts his hand in the fire or walks into it, the degree of his
belief in the fire would be of the highest order called Haqq al-yaqin.”10 As
Wahid Bakhsh illustrates, these represent hierarchical but interdependent
levels of knowing, experiencing, and being. In order to put theory into
practice, however, the Sufi novice needs guidance. Given the rigors of the
Sufi path, no one can hope to complete the rigorous spiritual journey
(suluk) alone. In fact, spiritual dilettantism is considered extremely danger-
ous, if not deadly. Only an accomplished spiritual master can provide the
wisdom, direction, and structure needed to propel the Sufi seeker (salik)
toward self-transcendence and intimacy with the Divine Beloved. In the
end, the salik needs a shaykh.
The Qualities of a True Shaykh

In his famous book, Bihishti Zewar [Heavenly Ornaments], Maulana
Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi (1864–1943)—a Chishti Sabiri shaykh and a key figure
in the history of the Deoband madrasa—offers spiritual aspirants the
Teaching Sufism 141
following advice:
If you intend to become a disciple, you should look for certain qualities in a
master. Do not become a disciple of anyone who lacks them. First, the master
should know the points of religion and be acquainted with the shari'at.
Second, his beliefs should in no way oppose the shari'at . . . Third, he should
not practice piri-muridi for food and a living. Fourth, the prospective pir
should himself be the disciple of someone who is regarded as venerable by good
people. Fifth, good people should regard him as good, too. Sixth, his teaching
should cause love and enthusiasm for religion to grow. This can be ascertained
from seeing the state of his other disciples. If among ten disciples five or six are
good, you can judge him to be a master with spiritual power; do not worry
about one or two being bad. You have heard about the spiritual power (tasir)
in elders. It is this. Do not look for other kinds of power—for example, the
power to say something and make it happen; or to remove sickness by breath-
ing on someone; or to make a wish come true by preparing an amulet; or to
make someone feel agitated through direction of the pir’s attention (tawajjuh)
toward that person. Never be deceived by these powers. The seventh important
quality is that the master’s religious counsel should not be swayed by his
disciples’ concerns but should stop them short in anything wrong.11
Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi’s criteria set the standard for the Chishti Sabiri revivalist
milieu of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also resonates with the
silsila’s contemporary teachings. Chishti Sabiri writings offer abundant advice
on the qualities of a proper shaykh. In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, for example,
Zauqi Shah submits his own list of prerequisites for sound spiritual guidance.
A shaykh should follow the shari'a; he should have a deep connection (nisbat)
with the potential murid; he should effect a positive and lasting change in his
committed disciples; and he should influence the heart (qalb) of anyone who
spends time in his company. “If these signs are present,” Zauqi Shah asserts,
“one should become a disciple without hesitation.”12 While the times
change, the requirements for proper spiritual guidance do not.
A Sufi master is the bridge between the abstraction of theoretical knowledge
and the concrete, visceral, and transformative power of direct experience.
Though book knowledge is useful, it has its limits. For Sufis, it is the shaykh
who demonstrates how to put thought into action, bridging the gap between
theory and practice. In the words of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi,
The theoretical knowledge derived from books cannot be, and was never
designed to be, a substitute for association with those experienced travelers who
have completed their journey along the road and reached their goal, and have
now returned to guide others on the same way. The Book of Allah itself was not
sent alone; it was sent through the medium of the Prophet who was at the same
time its conveyor, its commentator and its living interpretation. It was more-
over he, who by training and instructing them in the light of the Book, purified
his companions and elevated them to the heights of Godliness . . . This is the
principle which is followed in the system of teaching of the Sufis; theoretical
knowledge has to be quickened to life by association with a man of God, and
the road ahead cannot be traversed without the guide.13
Just as the Prophet Muhammad embodies the Qur'anic message, so too does
the shaykh embody the Sufi path. Disciples learn directly by living in his com-
pany, by listening to his words, and by observing him in action. For all
Muslims, of course, the Prophet serves as the perfection of piety. He is, as the
Qur'an (33:21) states, the uswa hasana (the “beautiful model”). For Sufis,
the Prophet is also the paradigmatic shaykh, the starting point in the chain of
spiritual authority. For Chishti Sabiris, the parallels between the living Sufi
masters and the Prophet are more than metaphorical. Disciples expressly link
the power and authority of their shaykhs with their unique relationship with
the Prophet Muhammad. “They are the 'Ulama-i Rasikhin,” writes Zauqi
Shah, “the learned people firm in their knowledge, and they have the
distinction of being recognized as heirs to the Holy Prophet.”14
This chain of spiritual power and authority is made explicit in Chishti
Sabiri ritual practice. The relationship with the shaykh provides intimacy with
the Prophet and ultimately with God. Through obedience and ritual disci-
pline, the Sufi disciple’s ego is first dissolved in the shaykh (fana' fi al-shaykh),
before becoming annihilated in the Prophet (fana' fi al-rasul) and, eventu-
ally, God (fana' fi Allah). According to Shahidullah Faridi, “Dependence of
the Shaykh is of course more in the beginning when the novice is making his
journey along the unfamiliar road. As he approaches the end of it, the per-
sonality of the Shaykh dissolves into that of the Noble Prophet (may Allah
bless and keep him), who is the Guide of guides, and then finally into that
One and Single Being who is the Author of all beings, the Creator.”15 Only
a perfected spiritual master (shaykh-i mukammil) who has traversed the
terrain himself can steer the disciple through the twists and turns of this path.
Effaced of individual ego, the shaykh serves as the embodiment of shari'a,
the living reflection of the Prophet, and, ultimately, the key to unlock the
mysteries of God. As Zauqi Shah explains,
A shaykh has achieved annihilation in the essence of both the Prophet, God
bless him and grant him salvation, and God Most High. For this reason, when
someone reaches the state of annihilation in the shaykh, he will immediately
receive annihilation in the Prophet and annihilation in God. If a glass of water
is poured into the ocean where does it go? This water is absorbed (fana') into
the ocean.16
Contemporary Chishti Sabiri disciples see their own spiritual masters as

living conduits to Islam’s sacred past. They frequently explain this dynamic
by drawing explicit parallels between the contemporary silsila and the early
Muslim community surrounding the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. As a
novice Pakistani disciple explained to me,
Your immediate attachment is to your shaykh. It is like the Prophet with his
Companions. You have to give your shaykh the same kind of respect. When he
is speaking to you, there is no question that it is divinely inspired. There is a
chain that links you to the Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation, and
through him to each of the shaykhs and ultimately to Allah. This is why the most
Teaching Sufism 143
important thing a disciple possesses is the spiritual genealogy (shajara). If

there is a manual to Sufism then it is the order’s shajara. It is a tree, that’s
the literal translation, a genealogical table. Knowing the pedigree of your silsila
is extremely important. You are supposed to be in touch with each of those
shaykhs through spiritual contact. You seek guidance from each of them
through muraqaba [contemplation]. And the Prophet, God bless him and
grant him salvation, as well. These linkages are extremely important. (March 22,
2001, Islamabad)
As this quote illustrates, for twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiris genealogy is

no mere abstraction. It is the lifeblood of spiritual power and authority.
Given the crucial importance of a spiritual master, how does an aspiring
Sufi find a true shaykh? Among Chishti Sabiris, the stories vary widely. For the
significant number of murids who come from families with a long history in
the silsila, the connection with the master was formed in childhood and then
deepened over time. According to a Pakistani female disciple, “I had known
him [Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi] since early childhood. My mother and my
grandmother always talked about these two brothers who had come from
England. There was an intense love and emotion we all had for him. To this
day, the love I have for him is more intense than that for my father, my broth-
ers, my sisters, all my children. I’ve turned fifty now. This love has grown
more and more with each passing day. I think it’s really the love of Allah”
(June 17, 2001, Lahore). Within mutligenerational silsila families, adab is
learned first through observation and then direct participation. Parents intro-
duce their children to the rules of decorum from an early age, and as they
mature young disciples are gradually drawn into the order’s symbolic uni-
verse and diverse ritual practices. As a Pakistani murid attests, the bonds with
the Sufi master run as deep as those of blood:
I hope my sons will become murids and that their generation will also be
associated with this silsila. Now my sons, they know the etiquette [adab]. They
kiss Hazrat Siraj Sahab’s hand. I didn’t teach them that, but they know it. All
the shaykhs have always been very kind to all of us. Everybody who came into
contact with them received the same treatment from them. I would say that
whatever we have achieved so far is because of the guidance of our shaykh and
his khalifa, Hazrat Siraj Sahab. Everything: worldly things, personal things,
spiritual things. All these things have been through their guidance and their
prayers for us. Otherwise, a person without a teacher or a leader or a guide can
be lost anywhere. (March 24, 2001, Islamabad)
Chishti Sabiri families take immense pride in their silsila affiliations and their
personal relationships with the shaykh, and they take great care to ensure that
this bond is passed down from generation to generation.
The majority of today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples did not inherit their silsila
connections, however. Many were first introduced to their shaykh by word of
mouth via interpersonal networks. As chapter 5 will demonstrate, others were
led to a spiritual master through dreams. Yet for most contemporary murids,
spiritual companionship and guidance with the shaykh was the culmination of
a long (and often arduous) search. Journeying for spiritual guidance is a com-
mon trope in Sufi hagiography. In narrating their own stories, many Chishti
Sabiris describe the challenges and difficulties of finding a suitable spiritual
mentor. Often it involves a paradigmatic quest in which the seeker travels
widely, meeting with many potential masters before finally discovering the
elusive connection with a spiritual guide. A young Pakistani male murid
explains the logic of this process: “If you’re searching for a shaykh, you have
the right to be selective. But you go and spend time with any number of
shaykhs. You meet with them, you see what sort of people are associated with
the silsila. Is there anything going on there which appears to be against
shari'a? If there is, you ask for clarification about why this is happening.
There is a whole process of elimination, and only then choose your shaykh. In
the end, you meet the person who is destined for you” (March 22, 2001,
Islamabad).
Chishti Sabiri disciples frequently point to the legacy of Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi—an Englishman, a convert, and, in the end, a Sufi teacher
of the highest rank—as the preeminent example of the sacrifices and poten-
tial rewards of the spiritual journey. Shahidullah’s remarkable story of a pro-
tracted search for spiritual guidance is echoed in the account of a young
novice, the French convert, who now lives in Karachi. After traveling widely
in Asia in search of spiritual wisdom, this young man ultimately found a deep
personal connection with Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh. There was, he suggests, an
immediate connection that made him desperate for initiation in the silsila.
Yet as a new convert to Islam he was filled with questions and eager for tan-
gible proof that Wahid Bakhsh was a true spiritual master. In an interview, he
recalled his first encounter with the shaykh:
I asked him [Wahid Bakhsh] to show me a miracle because I’d heard about fake
pirs. Not that I thought that Hazrat Sahab was a fake pir, but I knew that some
people had been shown a miracle. So I asked him. And he told me, “We are not
here for that. This will keep you from coming near to Allah.” For a week I kept
asking for initiation (bay'at) from Captain Sahab, but he refused, telling me,
“You’ve got an Indian visa in your pocket. Go to India and look around. You
will find holy men all over the country. Meet with them and when you return,
come to me.” In my heart I knew he was a good person. I was desperate to
receive bay'at from him and he finally agreed. I met Hazrat Captain Wahid
Bakhsh, may God have mercy upon him, and it is to him that my heart was
attracted. I came to know afterwards that these things are already planned, the
love you have for your murshid. It is a natural process in the system of Allah.
(September 2, 2001, Karachi)
As this account demonstrates, Chishti Sabiri disciples believe that the

relationship with the shaykh is preordained. While novices are expected to test
a potential spiritual suitor, the offer for guidance is not guaranteed. The
audacity of this young man’s request for a display of miracles is nonetheless
remarkable. Yet, in the end, he is won over by the sheer force of Wahid
Teaching Sufism 145
Bakhsh’s personality—his openness, encouragement, and kindness. More

than twenty years later, the Frenchman remains in Pakistan, immersed in
Sufi practice.
Once formed, the personal bond between Sufi master and disciple is as
intimate as it is intense. Not surprisingly, Chishti Sabiri murids often charac-
terize this connection as the single most important relationship in their lives.
In interviews, disciples spoke openly with me—often at great length and with
intense emotion—about their own experiences with their shaykhs. A murid’s
relationship with a Sufi master impacts every dimension of his/her personal,
professional, and spiritual life. For Chishti Sabiris of all backgrounds, it is a
bond that shapes their worldviews, directs their actions, and frames their
basic sense of self-identity. Significantly, it is precisely this kind of unwavering
devotion to Sufi masters that has led some critics to question Sufism. In the
past, Sufi masters have been feared as much as respected because of this
intense devotion of their followers. Chishti Sabiri murids, however, maintain
that the dedication to the master is not unconditional. Every shaykh’s status is
dependent on the power of his personal charisma, the depth of his piety, the
righteousness of his actions, and the strength of the genealogy that links the
master to the authority of the Prophet Muhammad. Though Sufi discipleship
ultimately demands personal surrender, devotion, and an unwavering faith in
one’s spiritual guide, Chishti Sabiri disciples insist that love for the shaykh is
not blind.
Formal Initiation (bay 'at)

The relationship between the Chishti Sabiri novice and the teaching shaykh is
consecrated through bay'at: the ritual ceremony that marks formal initiation
into the order. With bay'at, the Sufi aspirant is transformed into a murid—a
full participant in the silsila’s teaching network and corporate identity. The
ceremony itself is simple yet symbolic. With prayers and invocations, the
novice acknowledges the absolute authority of the shaykh and pledges obedi-
ence and submission to him. This custom has deep roots in Muslim culture.
In pre-Islamic Arab society, bay'at was the traditional way of pledging alle-
giance to a tribal chief. More importantly, the ceremony recalls the public
oath of allegiance that Muhammad’s followers pledged to him at Hudaybiya
in 628.17 According to the Qur'an (48:10), “Those who swear allegiance to
you [Muhammad] actually swear allegiance to God. God’s hand is over their
hands.” Echoing this covenant, the Chishti Sabiri bay'at ceremony formally
links the Sufi disciple with the teaching shaykh and, by extension, the spiritual
grace and blessing of the order’s chain of spiritual luminaries. Shahidullah
Faridi explains the importance of this ritual:
Baiat [sic] is a firm pact, and whoever makes it should make it with this aware-
ness. It is a pact not only with the Shaykh, but with all the saints of the silsila
and through them with the Prophet of Allah (may Allah bless and keep him),
and ultimately with Allah Himself . . . When the murid makes his allegiance to
his shaykh, he follows this precedent [the oath of allegiance to the Prophet];
in fact, if the limitations of time and space are ignored, he really makes the
very same pact as the Noble Prophet’s companions. We cannot physically pay
allegiance to the Noble Prophet (may All bless and keep him), but when we
give our hands to one whose spiritual tree reached up to him, it is in reality the
same thing.18
Chishti Sabiri bay'at, in essence, symbolizes a spiritual rebirth. It is an

affirmation of intention, a confirmation of loyalty, and a pledge to honor the
silsila’s antecedents.
It is significant—if somewhat paradoxical—that Chishti Sabiri bay'at
simultaneously inducts disciples into numerous Sufi orders. According to a
highly respected senior disciple, “The masters of our order give initiation in
four silsilas. When the initiation ceremony takes place, the disciple says, ‘I
take bay'at at the hands of my shaykh in the Chishtiyya Sabiriyya and
Nizamiyya, Suhrawardiyya, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya.’ These are the pri-
mary orders, and we take bay'at in all of them. The teachings [and practices]
are that of the Sabiriyaa silsila, but we receive the blessings [barakat] of all
four silsilas” (September 1, 2001, Karachi). This open, inclusive notion of
spiritual authority reflects a well-established historical precedent. It was in
fact common practice for premodern Chishti Sabiri masters—the nineteenth-
century reformist and Deoband founder Hajji Imdad Allah, for example—to
accept initiation into multiple Sufi orders. For the majority of today’s disci-
ples, however, these connections with multiple tariqas are largely symbolic.
In contemporary practice, the silsila’s identity is exclusive and its ritual prac-
tices are tightly controlled. Once they have taken bay'at, disciples are strongly
discouraged from seeking spiritual advice outside the insulated boundaries of
the silsila. In the words of a highly respected, elder murid,
There are so many branches to the Chishti silsila. Just here in Karachi there may
be three or four hundred branches. There are many Chishti Sabiris too—some
branches have been merging. We do not maintain contact with them at all. We
do not mix with anyone. Once you become a murid, you stay in one place, in
one silsila. You don’t go around with others. Before you’re a murid, it is alright
to visit other silsilas though, and other shaykhs. (December 15, 2000, Karachi)
Why this marked change in attitude and practice? Why this break with the
silsila’s own traditions? Significantly, Chishti Sabiri disciples explain this
exclusivity as a necessary response to the corruption and dangers of the mod-
ern age. In an increasingly unpredictable world, I was frequently told, a firm
commitment to a single guide and a single path offers the best hope for moral
guidance and spiritual protection. Disciples point especially to the persistent
dangers of falling under the influence of ideologues and unqualified religious
leaders. There is a widespread sense that the silsila’s rigid boundaries elimi-
nate the potential distractions, doubts, and damage of both unsound guid-
ance and spiritual dilettantism. Given the temptations and uncertainty of
Teaching Sufism 147
twenty-first-century life, disciples view total allegiance to a single silsila as a

prerequisite for spiritual progress. In the words of a prominent female murid,
Spiritual progress is hastened by focusing energies on one shaykh, one silsila.
You really need a living shaykh for it [spiritual development]. You would be
surprised—if you don’t go to different places, to different shaykhs, if you stick
to just one, then you progress really quickly. The problem for most people is
that they try to go to different places to benefit. There is a great loss in this.
Although exclusive affiliation is encouraged, Chishti Sabiri disciples do rec-

ognize the legitimacy of other Sufi paths and respect the shaykhs of other
orders. During interviews I discovered that many murids—especially elder dis-
ciples with established family connections to the order—have a thorough
knowledge of the history of Sufism well beyond the cultural landscape of
South Asia. As we have seen, disciples read and discuss the writings of spiritual
masters from other Sufi orders, both premodern and modern. There is, in
short, a pervasive appreciation of the multiplicity of Sufi traditions. A novice
male disciple explained this to me in a revealing fashion: “In very simple
terms, the awliya' Allah are like data that is available on a computer. For
example, if you come to Lahore it’s the same data available on a computer in
Karachi or Multan. When you turn on a computer it’s the same data. It [saint-
hood] is like that. There’s no difference as such, they all guide you. It’s the
same concepts, the same issues. It is like the Internet, you log on from any-
place and the same information is available” (November 4, 2000, Lahore).
This technological metaphor is, once again, an important indication of the
educational background and worldview of many twenty-first-century Chishti
Sabiri disciples. Here spiritual power is likened to computer software—it is
transferable, universally communicable, and widely accessible. Yet even as
murids acknowledge the reality and viability of other spiritual paths, they are
equally resolute in maintaining boundaries. They insist that each Sufi order’s
teachings and practices are distinct and that individual shaykhs are powerless
to help others outside their fold. “We should never compare saints, they all
have individual duties,” a female murid assured me. “But if you’re in a Sufi
order, you must follow only the shaykhs of that silsila. You can only receive
spiritual blessing ( faiz) from your own silsila. Other shaykhs don’t even want
to meet you. They can only say, ‘there’s nothing we can give ‘you’”
(November 14, 2000, Islamabad).
The stories that Chishti Sabiri disciples tell about their own experience of
bay'at are remarkably diverse. Some murids, for example, spent a great deal
of time in the company of their shaykh before obtaining formal initiation into
the order. One of Wahid Bakhsh’s disciples was surprised to learn that bay'at
was a prerequisite for spiritual training. “In fact, it took me some time [to
take bay'at],” he told me. “I didn’t know it was necessary. I just thought,
‘I’m his murid.’ And I stayed that way, I think, for a year or two until some-
one told me that I had to do something else. Someone else told me. They
said, ‘You have to physically take bay'at.’ I said, ‘Really? I’m already his
murid.’ And this person said, ‘No, it must be done.’ There is a specific time
and date to become a murid” (November 4, 2000, Lahore). At the opposite
end of the spectrum are those murids whose initiation seems to have been
utterly spontaneous, the result of a sudden and an overwhelming desire.
A senior male disciple, for example, recalled driving down the street in
Karachi one day in 1975 when he was suddenly inspired to turn toward the
home of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi. In his words, “When I arrived, I met him
and said, ‘I don’t know much about bay'at or the silsila, but I have a very
strong attraction to you and want to be with you.’ Hazrat Sahab just smiled
and said, ‘Yes, it’s like this.’ I still can’t believe how he managed to get me in
the silsila. It was his kindness and grace. I was at that time absolutely igno-
rant, yet he knew I would come to understand” (September 27, 2000,
Lahore). Wahid Bakhsh’s Malaysian disciples represent another model alto-
gether. Distanced from the shaykh by the span of the Indian Ocean, most of
them took bay'at by letter, pledging their oath of allegiance with a signature
long before they had even met the shaykh in person (interview: October 3,
2001, Kuala Lumpur).
Regardless of gender, nationality, or personal background, however,
Chishti Sabiris agree on one thing. They all mark bay'at as a crucial hinge
moment—a life-altering event that changed forever the trajectory of their
lives. Individuals remember and celebrate bay'at as an experience of personal
transformation, a spiritual rebirth. The testimony of a female Pakistani disci-
ple of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani is typical:
I first met him in 1993. He came in for the evening prayer. He was this tall,
thin, stern-looking man. He came in and he glanced at us, the congregation.
There were maybe seven or eight women in the room. After prayers, I was
introduced to him. I told him that I’d had some spiritual experiences since
childhood. So he took me aside and spoke to me. And while he was speaking to
me, it seemed like he was looking inside me and I was filled with this white
light. I felt very safe, very comfortable. I was very impressed with him because
he was very simple, very austere. This was just two years before he passed away.
I met him consecutively for the next three days, and I decided to ask for
bay'at. I knew that this was a special person, and I wanted him in my life.
I knew about bay'at, but I didn’t know exactly the ramifications of it. I just
decided that whatever it was, I wanted to be associated with him spiritually. So
I took bay'at from him. We were together for maybe three or four days in
Islamabad, he was staying there. When he left and went away, I felt as if I was
in a trance. I was transformed. I remember I left him at maybe four o’clock, and
for the next couple of hours I just sat in my room, transfixed. I felt that I was in
the presence of God. If you are with a capable shaykh, then he does take you
there. I think that what he was showing me was how far I could go [in suluk].
(March 22, 2001, Islamabad)
This account, narrated with great emotion, is representative of the many

stories I heard from Chishti Sabiris, men and women, young and old alike.
Teaching Sufism 149
For this young woman, Wahid Bakhsh’s personal charisma and pious
demeanor made an immediate and lasting impression. She remembers the
shaykh’s power as a tangible, physical force, a magnetic pull that created an
immediate and intense desire for discipleship.
Perhaps the most remarkable narrative of personal transformation that
I heard during my interviews came from Wahid Bakhsh’s first Malaysian
disciple, a medical doctor now living in Kuala Lumpur. He arrived in Pakistan
in 1978 and immediately enrolled at a local madrasa in Karachi. Through
personal contacts, he was eventually introduced to the silsila and frequently
attended the zikr circles led by Shaykh Siraj 'Ali Muhammad. Yet despite
frequent requests, he was not formally initiated into the Chishti Sabiri order.
His growing desperation for spiritual guidance culminated with a pilgrimage
to Pakpattan for the annual death anniversary ('urs) of saint Baba Farid ad-
Din. It was a trip that would profoundly alter the direction of his life. For
Chishti Sabiri murids in Pakistan and Malaysia, his story clearly demonstrates
the intimacy and intensity of the master-disciple relationship. I heard it
circulated on numerous occasions among diverse groups of disciples. Though
it is now part of the silsila’s collective memory, the story is best told in the
disciple’s own words:
One day, I heard that the murids were going to go to Pakpattan Sharif. I was
told that in Pakpattan nobody’s requests are rejected, so I packed my bags and
followed the group. It was the 'urs of Baba Farid. There I met a dervish, an
English dervish, walking around inside the shrine, searching for a shaykh.
Neither of us were disciples. On the final days of the 'urs, I still had not received
discipleship. I was disappointed and frustrated.
I went down to the shrine and joined a group reciting Qur'an. Suddenly,
I received some illuminations [kashfiyyat]. I fell down. People carried me to
Captain Wahid Bakhsh’s hut, outside the shrine. I sensed that I was uncon-
scious, but I could still hear people talking around me. They were saying, “He
has had a heart attack!” Captain Sahab came and blew his breath on me. While
I was unconscious I saw something. I experienced something very beautiful.
Then I awoke and described what had happened. Captain Sahab agreed, “Yes.
This is what happened. You do not have a shaykh, but you have a great deal
of concentration. You are open to these things, but you don’t have a filter.
A shaykh is a filter.”
The following night, there was a sama' [musical assembly] scheduled, but he
told me that I should not attend. He said, “It’s too much for you. But tomor-
row, if you see something in a dream, then come to me.” The following day I
returned early in the morning and waited for him. Captain Sahab asked, “Did
you see anything?” I said, “No, sir. But please, I want to become your murid!”
He said, “Ok, make wudu' [the ritual washing for prayer].” I became his murid
right then and there. This was in 1979. At that time Captain Wahid Bakhsh had
not yet started taking murids. I was the first. (October 6, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
This testimonial offers a particularly striking example of the transformative

power of bay'at. Here the aspiring disciple experiences a desperate desire for
spiritual guidance, culminating with a mystical out-of-body experience at the
shrine of one of the Chishti order’s most renowned saints. In the midst of the
chaos, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh appears to restore order, bringing the man back
to normal consciousness and confirming the verity of his spiritual experience.
The anecdote ends with a resolution: the desperate longing for spiritual guid-
ance is finally rewarded with formal initiation at the feet of a spiritual master.
Though far from typical, this story conforms to a general pattern described
by many Chishti Sabiri disciples. It also attests to the power of persuasion. In
time, this private experience became public knowledge, inspiring a number of
other Malaysians to join the silsila. To a large extent, the Chishti Sabiri
order’s growing foothold in Southeast Asia can be traced to this singular
ecstatic experience at a rural Sufi shrine in Pakistan almost three decades ago.
Vertical Pedagogy: The Chishti Sabiri Shaykh

as Spiritual Teacher
The Chishti Sabiri shaykh—past and present—guides his followers through
the intricacies of Sufi ritual practice while instructing them in the nuances of
doctrine, morals (akhlaq), and etiquette (adab).19 In this teaching system,
the shaykh’s authority is absolute and his orders are not to be questioned. He
carefully monitors the adept’s evolution through myriad spiritual states (hal)
and stations (maqam), alternatively expanding or restricting the murid’s
activities to facilitate spiritual growth. As a spiritual intermediary—the heir to
the Prophet himself—the shaykh is seen as a vital buffer from the overwhelm-
ing power of spiritual energy (faiz; baraka). In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Zauqi
Shah employs the familiar Sufi metaphor of cooking to explain the relation-
ship between a novice and master. In his words, “If a piece of meat is placed
directly into the fire it will immediately burn up. But if it is placed in a pot of
water and the pot is then placed over the fire, the meat will be saved from
burning and will cook properly. A shaykh is a buffer, just like the pot and
water. As long as a seeker is deprived of a shaykh, he will remain in a [vulner-
able] state and cannot progress. If the proper connection with a shaykh is
made, however, than progress begins automatically.”20 As this metaphor sug-
gests, the relationship between master and disciple is asymmetrical. In Chishti
Sabiri practice, the flow of knowledge and power is top-down and unidirec-
tional: the shaykh leads and the murid follows. Once again, Zauqi Shah pro-
vides a clear rationale for this vertical pedagogy:
You need the services of one who knows—a Teacher, a Sheikh, or a Murshid—
call him by whatever name you please. The initiative must come from him. He
initiates you into the mysteries of the Unseen. He chalks out a course of action
for you. He brings the Unseen with you into harmony with the Unseen
without. He keeps a constant watch over you, and saves you from slips and
pitfalls. He acts as a medium between the high and the low, between the
Deity and humanity, between where you are and where you ought to be, or in
plainer language, between you and your God. So the Sheikh or Murshid is an
indispensable necessity in the spiritual emancipation of man.21
Teaching Sufism 151
In this system of spiritual pedagogy, the Sufi subject remains under the
constant gaze of hierarchical authority.
Sufi learning is oral and aural. Knowledge is transmitted directly from
master to student by word of mouth. Over the centuries, Sufi masters devel-
oped a distinct vocabulary to communicate the wisdom and experiences of
the mystical path.22 As a result, Sufi lexicons reveal a sophistication and
nuance that matches the complexity of the tradition’s theories of human psy-
chology, physiology, and ritual performance. As in the madrasa-based system
of the Islamic religious sciences, Sufi teaching focuses on interpersonal inter-
action. Direct, face-to-face encounters with the shaykh spur the disciple’s abil-
ity to remember and internalize the master’s words. Significantly, this
teaching is not limited to discourse. There is, in fact, a fundamental under-
standing of the limits of language. In the intimate exchange between Sufi
master and disciple, the shaykh also teaches through his actions. Disciples, in
turn, are expected to listen and observe—and then model their own behavior
accordingly. Summarizing this relationship, Arthur Buehler notes,
Pedagogically, the shaykh instructs through example and personal conduct;

much of a seeker’s learning involves conscious behavioral modification and
unconscious modeling (and subsequent internalization) of one’s spiritual
guide . . . If the metaphor of a disciple’s spiritual growth is a journey, then the
shaykh functions as both the guide for the perilous trip through unknown
territory and as the teacher of the exercises necessary to proceed on that
voyage. Using the metaphor of transformation for the disciple’s spiritual
journey implies other relationships which involve both father-son, physician-
patient, and beloved-lover roles. In actual practice, each spiritual director uses
a comprehensive array of behavioral and psychological strategies to enact these
changes.23
While Buehler’s research focuses on the Indian Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi

silsila, his comments also provide an apt summation of contemporary Chishti
Sabiri pedagogy.
Sufi training involves a delicate, organic process of what anthropologist
Frances Trix labels attunement, “an increasing coordination of the heart of
the talib [student] and murshid [guide], with ‘heart’ understood as the seat
of higher faculties of perception.”24 In Chishti Sabiri practice the interchange
between master and disciple is remarkably flexible and malleable. Instruction
is also highly personalized. The Sufi master shapes his words and adapts the
training regimen to fit the specific needs and capacities of each individual dis-
ciple. “The shaykh has a personal, exclusive relationship with every murid,” a
senior Pakistani devotee explained. “He may say one thing to a murid that is
not said to others. For every murid he has a different platform. It is this
connection that matters most” (October 13, 2000, Lahore).
In the initial stages of a disciple’s spiritual training, the shaykh tends to be
proactive, often intervening directly and forcefully to spur the novice’s
development. Independence and autonomy increase, however, as the disciple
progresses along the spiritual path. An advanced male murid explained this
dynamic to me:
When you start on the Sufi path [suluk] you are like a blind man. You have no
knowledge of anything. So you are told certain things. The shaykh tells you to
do this, this, and this—without explaining the whole process to you. In time,
once a murid has some experience, then he will come to the shaykh and say, “I
have experienced this.” Then the shaykh will say, “Ok, now do this.” So the
shaykh takes him through the course. That course is only given to people who
actually step in for suluk. Every murid is not a salik [a traveler on the Sufi path].
Every murid does not go through the same experiences, nor is he given the
same spiritual exercises or daily prayers. Only a select few do suluk. It differs
according to the individual’s temperament, you see? For example, somebody
can stay awake at night very easily, while another person dozes off after nine
o’clock. The shaykh makes allowances for that. The shaykh knows how to go
about it. (September 1, 2001, Karachi)
As this quote suggests, Chishti Sabiris view this pedagogical system as a spir-
itual meritocracy. They acknowledge that not every murid is capable of the
disciple and sacrifices required of suluk. Even for those who are willing to
immerse themselves in the rigors of Sufi practice, the experience is not uni-
form. While certain murids progress quickly, others are forced to struggle at
every stage of the path.
Through frequent interaction and direct observation, the Chishti Sabiri
shaykh gauges the progress of each individual disciple. On the basis of his
intuitive knowledge and keen sensitivity to the disciple’s character and tem-
perament, he prescribes a variety of spiritual disciplines in order to spur
higher states of consciousness. According to Chishti Sabiri teachings, a
murid’s progress depends on the master’s powers of spiritual attention
(tawajjuh). According to Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi,
The qualified Shaykh possesses as a gift of God the power of transference of

spiritual qualities; a kind of outpouring (faiz) from the always full vessel of his
heart. By means of this power he is continually aiding the murid in the devel-
opment of his inner potentialities, correcting his aberrations and supporting his
efforts in the proper direction. This spiritual action has been compared to the
mother giving milk to the child, the physical outpouring of nourishment which
makes possible his growth and development.25
Shahidullah’s metaphor highlights the absolute ignorance and helplessness of

the Sufi novice. At the beginning of the journey, the murid is utterly depend-
ent on the wisdom and compassion of the spiritual guide. The remaking of
the self therefore presupposes a total and complete surrender of personal will
and an unwavering faith in the wisdom of the teaching shaykh.
In Chishti Sabiri writings, the Sufi master is frequently likened to a
physician caring for a sick patient. He alone recognizes the root cause of the
disease and possesses the remedy for its cure. The patient, however, must first
want to be healed and trust the doctor enough to submit to his care. “The
Teaching Sufism 153
personal element is an important factor in the dissemination of tasawwuf,”

writes Zauqi Shah. “Mere book knowledge leads one nowhere. A sick man
stands in need of both the physician and the prescription. Very often, he
stands more in need of the physician than of the prescription. Unless there is
some competent physician to administer the prescription properly, the pre-
scription remains useless.”26 In a personal letter written to a female Malaysian
murid, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh adopts a similar idiom in order to explain his
own duties as a teaching shaykh:
I as religious teacher do not declare a wrong to be a right. Nor do I ask you to

stop the wrong acts if I know you cannot comply with my order. What I do is
to work with the causes of the disease and relieve the cause so that the disease
is cured. In our spiritual treatment we treat the cause and not the symptoms of
the disease. When the cause is removed, the symptoms disappear. But if the
cause is not removed, the disease gets complicated and is never cured. You will
see, God willing, how this spiritual therapy works, and works without deter-
ment to your business or profession. So go on as you are, and Allah Most High
will definitely help you because your intention is good.27
Thus, the shaykh serves multiple roles in the Chishti Sabiri pedagogical
system: he is a teacher, mentor, translator, healer, advisor, and disciplinarian.
Caring for the spiritual lives of disciples, however, is no easy task. This is seen
in a revealing discourse by Zauqi Shah in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq. In a conversa-
tion recorded on October 3, 1941 (11 Ramadan, 1360), a disciple invites the
shaykh to listen to a Ramadan Qur'an recitation broadcast on the radio from
Egypt. Zauqi Shah reluctantly declines the offer, claiming that his energies
are limited:
Some other time. I am too tired. I have grown old. The days of my youth when
I used to enjoy spiritual exercises [mujahida] have gone. It is now time for
meditation. I did not sleep at all yesterday. Today is Thursday, so I will not sleep
again. I have to do a great deal of work for the sake of you people. Whatever
spiritual duties you are assigned to carry out I have to do myself. After I extract
the spiritual essence, I transfer it to you through spiritual attention [tawajjuh].
A shaykh is necessary for this very reason. Otherwise, everyone could become a
saint [wali Allah] just by reading books! A shaykh has to do an immense
amount of work on your behalf.28
Here Zauqi Shah lets down his guard to gently remind his disciple that a
Chishti Sabiri shaykh carries a weighty burden.
The Etiquette of Discipleship

The fundamental spiritual connection between Sufi master and disciple is
rooted in desire (irada). The disciple, or murid, is literally the “one who
desires”; the object of his/her longing, is the murad—another term for the
Sufi master meaning “the one who is desired.” The Sufi system of spiritual
teaching is based on a benign authoritarianism: the master leads and the dis-
ciple follows. Given the inherent dangers of the path, a murid’s submission is
viewed as a vital precursor to spiritual growth. In exchange for nurturing
along the spiritual path, the murid is expected to demonstrate a selfless
loyalty and unwavering trust in her/his spiritual guide.
Chishti Sabiri pedagogy—both past and present—rests on the cardinal
values of etiquette and propriety. The master-disciple relationship, in other
words, is mediated and facilitated through adab. As a comprehensive code of
moral conduct, adab molds character, conditions behavior, and shapes social
interaction. For individual disciples, adab also ameliorates doubt and ambi-
guity. Murids follow the lead of their shaykh in the faith that the path is well
marked and that sacrifice and persistence will ultimately be rewarded. In
Bihishti Zewar, Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi outlines the parameters of adab for his
female readers who aspire to join a Sufi tariqa. His thirteen rules of proper
moral conduct are, in essence, corollaries of a single primary imperative:
“Respect your master sincerely.”29 Twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiris
adhere to the same preconditions for spiritual transformation, beginning with
this essential mantra.
Respect for the shaykh is the essential prerequisite for suluk. The Sufi aspi-
rant’s spiritual potential, I was often told, completely depends on the nature
of her/his bond with the shaykh. This relationship is founded on certain key
virtues: humility, deference, trust, and love. In outlining the rules for the
“training of the lovers” (Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq), Shaykh Zauqi Shah explains
the logic of the pir-murid bond:
In order to receive the spiritual blessings [faizan] of the shaykh, two things are
necessary. First, they [master and disciple] must establish a straight connection.
There should be no knots, tension, or breaks in this link from either the murid
or the pir. Secondly, when something is poured from one vessel into another,
the larger vessel is held high and the receiving vessel is kept low. Without these
two conditions, it is impossible to receive spiritual blessings. Those people who
say that the pir makes his murids worship him do not understand that if the ves-
sel that gives is not held higher then nothing can be received from it. These are
the etiquettes [adab] of this path, and it is extremely important to act on them.30
Upon entering a Sufi order, a murid relinquishes personal autonomy,

abdicating selfhood to the will of the shaykh. A Sufi disciple’s obeisance must
be total and uncompromising. In the famous words of the Chishti luminary
Shaykh Nizam ad-Din Awliya', “The adept conducts himself like a corpse in
the hands of the washerman. That corpse asks no questions. It does not move
on its own. It responds to every wish and to every initiative of the washer-
man. This is the third state of trust. It is the highest, and its attainment rep-
resents a lofty spiritual station for the Sufi adept.”31 Ideally, the Sufi novice is
like a piece of clay—passive and malleable—in the hand of the master spiritual
potter. It is important to note that the logic and mechanics of the Sufi para-
digm diverge radically from Western psychology and theories of the self. As
Katherine Ewing argues, “Psychoanalytic theory has embedded within it an
Teaching Sufism 155
ideology of independence as a sign of maturity. Sufi theory and Islam, in

contrast, rest on an ideology of maturity manifested in submission and
relationship.”32 According to Sufi theorists, everything depends on the initial
act of complete surrender to the will of the spiritual guide. A murid must
submit before she/he can be reformed and remade.
In interviews, Chishti Sabiri disciples frequently stressed the importance of
following the shaykh’s advice on all matters, both spiritual and temporal. This
is, they cautioned, sometimes easier said than done. On occasion, the master’s
recommendations conflict with a murid’s own desires, leaving the disciple
with a difficult choice. The story of Wahid Bakhsh’s French disciple illustrates
this point. In his words,
I only stayed in Pakistan because my shaykh told me to. He said, “You ought to
go to Karachi, to the Islamic Center. You should learn Qur'an and Arabic at the
madrasa.” Most of the foreign disciples from the time of Hazrat Shahidullah
Faridi, may God have mercy upon him, used to go there. I was there for three
years. It was not easy for the first year. I kept writing to Hazrat Sahab, saying
“I don’t want to study in this madrasa. I just want to travel. It was my life for
four years, so how can I stick to one place?” For me it was inconceivable to stay
in the madrasa. But each time he replied to me, saying “It is good for you to
stay there. You must stay there for your suluk.” So I accepted his orders.
Some murids are asked to make profound changes to their lifestyle, changes
that impact not only themselves but also their families and friends. In such
circumstances, acquiescence is only possible with the firm faith that the
shaykh knows best and that no decisions are made without a deeper purpose,
even if the disciple cannot see it for himself.
However, this does not mean that Chishti Sabiri disciples have no voice or
that their thoughts, ideas, and opinions are ignored. In practice, the teaching
shaykh often encourages input from his murids, consulting with them before
making decisions on important matters. Even so, obedience is stressed as the
safest and surest path to spiritual development. A senior Malaysian disciple
explains the necessity of adab:
If you really want to undertake this training adab is very important. It has a very
positive influence, it keeps everything under control. Otherwise something can
come into your head, and you begin to listen to your own voice. Then you have
problems. One’s success depends on adab to a great extent. I know this from
experience. Whatever your shaykh says, make it final. That doesn’t mean that
our shaykhs do not want to listen. You can express anything to them. You can
express your views. The shaykh will look into it and then he’ll advise you. In the
end though, he is your master and you are the student. Our training is based on
this: you must always think of yourself as a nobody. You get into serious
problems when you think you are the center of everything. So you follow what-
ever the shaykh prescribes. You may question it, but you do not argue. The
shaykhs are very reasonable though. They never force anything on you.
(September 27, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
For Chishti Sabiri disciples, the shaykh is the paradigmatic moral exemplar.
The master sets the standard for conduct, decorum, and piety; murids, in
turn, aim to model their behavior on his example. Disciples are cautioned
against blindly aping the master’s actions, however. In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq,
Zauqi Shah illustrates this important point through a teaching story. His les-
son comes in a discourse appropriately entitled “The Difference between
Obedience and Imitation”:
The shaykh’s orders should be obeyed, but all of his actions should not be
imitated without thought or understanding. The master’s spiritual station
[maqam] is different, and he acts according to his own station. There was once
a saint who ordered one of his disciples to busy himself in a corner of a mosque
while he was occupied elsewhere in the mosque. Another Sufi master was pres-
ent in the same mosque at the very same time. The saint had been struggling
with a problem. In order to solve this difficulty he lied down for some time and
focused his spiritual attention on the Prophet of God, God bless him and grant
him salvation. Seeing his shaykh, the murid imitated him. He also lay down, and
subsequently fell sound asleep. After some time, the saint got up and prepared
himself for prayers. The other Sufi master had been watching all these events
the entire time. He got up and kicked the sleeping murid, saying, “Wake up
and go pray your namaz without ablutions [wudu] too!” The shaykh should
not be imitated in everything, although any order you receive from him should
be acted upon.33
In this story, the Sufi disciple mistakes meditation for slumber, embarrassing
both himself and his shaykh in the process. Zauqi Shah employs this anecdote
to illustrate the dangers of outward action in the absence of inward knowledge.
The moral of this lesson is not lost on today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples.
Murids view their shaykhs as blueprints for moral living. They look to the Sufi
master for guidance on all matters, spiritual and temporal alike. At all times,
however, disciples are cautioned to remain mindful of their relative status. As
an accomplished spiritual guide, the shaykh may think, talk, and act in ways
that appear contradictory or confusing, even irrational. Echoing Zauqi
Shah’s message, a senior male disciple told me, “We can’t compare our lives
to theirs [the Sufi masters]. We can only take lessons from their lives. An
extremely important teaching in tasawwuf is something that all shaykhs tell
their disciples: ‘Do what you’re told to do! Don’t try to copy exactly what
your shaykh does.’ That, in fact, is your training, that is your main work. You
do what you’re told to do, you fulfill those obligations” (September 1, 2001,
Karachi). Disciples therefore are encouraged to trust the master and to follow
his guidance to the letter, without passing judgment on his actions.
Thus, Chishti Sabiri pedagogy presupposes the murid’s complete obedi-
ence to his/her shaykh—the voluntary abdication of subjective will and ego
to the spiritual mentor. This is the ideal. In everyday practice, however, the
dynamic and intensely personal relationship with a Sufi shaykh requires a care-
ful and constant balancing act. It is the shaykh who guides the novice disciple
along the path, but spiritual growth is impossible in the absence of the Sufi
Teaching Sufism 157
adept’s abiding determination, discipline, and resolve. “These are not things
that you just go and get for the asking, you have to strive hard for them,” a
high-ranking male disciple told me. “If a salik has perseverance and diligence,
if he is hardworking, then if he wants to know about the path he will come to
know about it. A shaykh will only tell a person who he feels has the capacity
to understand and contain that knowledge. Otherwise it will not be
divulged” (May 21, 2001, Karachi). Chishti Sabiri pedagogy, in short, asserts
that spiritual development is never simply awarded. It must be earned.
There is, to be sure, an inherent tension between these dual imperatives of
acquiescence and action. In everyday practice, each murid must learn to nav-
igate between absolute submission to hierarchical authority and an enduring
imperative for individual action and moral responsibility. But how? I often
asked disciples this very question. One of the most cogent answers came from
a senior Pakistani murid. When asked to explain the adage that a Sufi disciple
must be “like a corpse in the hands of a washerman” he replied,
This statement does not mean inaction on the part of the murid. This surrender
implies total obedience, but not sitting idle. You must be very active in total
obedience, like a good servant. Your submission is such that if the shaykh sends
you one hundred times to the store to fetch something, you happily do it a
hundred times. That is being “like a corpse.” Whatever the shaykh utters, what-
ever he prescribes, you do it with full enthusiasm. Actively striving, that’s the
essential part. This still implies individuality. You never question the shaykh’s
utterances. Whatever he says, you obey. This is for God, and it has to be done.
This is found in the Qur'an. When the Prophet used to ask something of the
Companions, if somebody did not do it with enthusiasm, there was admonish-
ment. Among murids you find varying types of behavior. There are some who
are very alert, anticipating the shaykh’s timing. And then there are some who are
lazy, who do things halfheartedly. (March 16, 2001, Lahore)
This response encapsulates a prevalent view among Chishti Sabiri disciples.

Regardless of their personal background and level of experience, murids rec-
ognize that the Sufi path is as narrow as it is long. There is, they assert, sim-
ply no way around one basic fact: suluk requires hard work, dedication, and
personal sacrifice. “You must work very hard on your own,” a female
Pakistani disciple assured me. “This is the Chishti philosophy” (February 26,
2001, Lahore).
This emphasis on personal responsibility and self-reliance is doubly impor-
tant in an environment where Chishti Sabiri ritual practices are increasingly
pursued in isolation. Although today’s twenty-first-century murids still con-
sider direct contact with the shaykh invaluable, in everyday practice it is a rare
occasion. In Karachi, the order’s current teaching shaykh, Siraj 'Ali
Muhammad, leads weekly halqa (communal zikr sessions) on Thursday
evenings. The shaykh also hosts an informal public question-and-answer lec-
ture session (dars) at his home on Sunday mornings. Disciples who live in
other parts of Pakistan—and beyond South Asia altogether—are rarely able
to attend these gatherings. For them, access to the shaykh necessarily comes
via other venues. For many, companionship with the shaykh (suhbat) is
limited to either infrequent visits to Karachi or the annual communal
pilgrimages to Sufi shrines. In the interest of more regular communication, a
significant number of murids also find “virtual guidance” in cyberspace. As a
technophile and Internet aficionado himself, Shaykh Siraj regularly
offers advice on both temporal and spiritual matters via e-mail. This new
form of digital discipleship is yet another striking example of the silsila’s
fluid incorporation of modern technology into Chishti Sabiri networks of
knowledge and practice. Significantly, disciples mark the increased emphasis
on individual action and adaptive use of new formats for communication as a
necessary response to changing times. In my view, these salient modifications
to traditional pedagogy also demonstrate how Chishti Sabiris have accom-
modated Sufism to modernity—an important point that I explore further in
the next chapter.
Within the silsila’s teaching network, how exactly do Chishti Sabiri
disciples learn? What are the mechanisms for transmitting Sufi knowledge? As
spiritual teachers, Chishti Sabiri shaykhs often employ stories and parables as
heuristic devices. In their public and private meetings with disciples, they
impart practical moral lessons through both personal anecdotes and narra-
tives of past spiritual luminaries. The mechanisms for transmitting esoteric
knowledge are hardly unique to Sufism. Numerous teaching traditions in
diverse religious worlds focus on precisely this sort of direct, interpersonal,
oral exchange between master and disciple. Anthropologist Kirin Narayan’s
insights on storytelling as a medium for religious instruction in a contempo-
rary Hindu religious community are equally applicable to today’s Chishti
Sabiri silsila:
When disciples gather around a religious teller, they listen with an intensity
and a desire to be edified, not only entertained. The cross-cutting points of
view and ambiguity with a story can generate multiple meanings, and so audi-
ences may take away different interpretations of what is being told and why.
Listeners who screen these stories with the expectation that they will provide
counsel, actively appropriate meanings that speak to their concerns and
conflicts. Listening to a religious storyteller, believers find illumination for their
disparate paths. Story worlds are compelling precisely because they relate back
to everyday life.34
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs too construct rich “story worlds” to illuminate the
complexities of Sufi theory and practice. Murids, in turn, listen to these nar-
rative performances with rapt attention, knowing that the master’s every
word is imbued with deeper meaning.
Many of the Chishti Sabiri rules of adab expressly focus on the art of lis-
tening. Ritual propriety dictates that disciples must sit passively and speak as
little as possible in the presence of the shaykh. Silence, disciples suggest,
demonstrates an attentiveness, humility, and respect for the status of the
master.35 In any exchange with the shaykh, the impetus for conversation and
Teaching Sufism 159
questions should come from the spiritual master. In the words of a senior
male disciple,
The novices tend to question the shaykh more, converse more. The experienced
murids keep quiet and listen. They [advanced disciples] are in attendance, in
submission. They do not intellectualize the discussion or think that a lecture is
being given. Many times the shaykh does not say anything. After a half hour he
will say, “let’s disperse.” It’s not that nothing happened in that half hour when
everybody was keeping quiet. That’s why the adab is that you should really not
initiate a discussion. You should not ask questions or try to control discussion
or give it a direction. That is against etiquette. (March 16, 2001, Lahore)
As this testimony suggests, in Chishti Sabiri pedagogy even silence is instruc-

tive. When sitting at the feet of the shaykh, the most important thing is com-
panionship (suhbat), not conversation.
Disciples stress that a perfected Sufi shaykh possesses powers of mental
insight and discernment that make all talk superfluous. In interviews, murids
frequently recalled moments when their questions were answered by the
shaykh without being asked. The reflections of a senior Pakistani male murid
are instructive:
Many times a question has occurred in my mind and immediately the shaykh
answers that question, without having been asked. This is a common experi-
ence. Almost everyone has experienced this, I think. This is the reality of the
Unseen entering the phenomenal world. I used to argue and ask questions.
Now I understand that it was egoism that caused me to do those things.
Sometimes I still get worried when I don’t ask anything. I worry that he [the
shaykh] might be thinking that I’m no longer serious. So then this fear comes.
Am I sliding backwards because I don’t ask anything now? Sometimes you
really doubt your progress—if you don’t feel anything, when initially you used
to feel a lot. Many murids have these doubts. But now I just sit in silence.
No state is constant. This is called expansion [bast] and contraction [qabz].
(March 16, 2001, Lahore)
Along the Sufi path, I was often told, moments of insight and clarity are
followed by periods of darkness and doubt. Spiritual development is there-
fore marked by a deepening sense of trust—a faith that answers will come,
that doubts and ambiguities will be resolved in time. Amid this constant ebb
and flow, patience is essential and silence is golden.
The etiquette of Chishti Sabiri discipleship also addresses a murid’s bodily
comportment. Here too there are certain basic rules that all disciples are
expected to follow. Adab requires that disciples stand whenever a shaykh
enters or leaves an assembly, for example. When sitting in the master’s pres-
ence, murids position themselves physically lower than the shaykh. Similarly,
they are careful to avoid pointing the soles of their feet at the shaykh or turn-
ing their back on him at any time. When disciples do engage the shaykh in
conversation they refrain from laughter, speak in a quiet voice, and avoid
direct eye contact. These rules of decorum are common to Sufi orders
throughout South Asia—the legacy of premodern Persian court culture.36
Beyond these standard customs, Chishti Sabiris are also expected to be in a
state of ritual purification whenever they enter the shaykh’s presence. Wahid
Bakhsh explains the rationale for these strict rules of decorum by recalling the
teachings of his own mentor:
Hazrat [Zauqi Shah], may God have mercy upon him, often used to say that a
person should perform the ritual washing [wudu] before presenting himself to
the blessed saints because their companionship is a form of worship. He used
to say that one should not perform supererogatory prayer [nawafil ] before
entering the shaykh’s presence. Instead, he should only do his obligatory
prayers [farz] in accordance with the example of the Prophet Muhammad
[sunna]. The reason for this is that companionship with a saint is by law
optional [nawafil]. He [Zauqi Shah] declared that, like the Ka'ba, a perfected
human being [insan-i kamil] is a manifestation of God. The rank of the
perfected human being, however, is much higher than that of the Ka'ba. On
one occasion a disciple was standing in front of Hazrat with his hands folded
[as a sign of respect]. Someone objected to this, saying it was improper to
stand before anyone other than God with folded hands [as in prayer]. On hear-
ing this, Hazrat responded, “He should have been asked whether he would
stand with folded hands in front of the Ka'ba. After all, isn’t the Ka'ba also
other-than God?”37
The use of legal language in this passage is significant. It is illustrative of how

Chishti Sabiris couch their own Sufi practices in the idioms of mainstream,
normative Islamic practice. This anecdote also confirms once again the fun-
damental belief in the legality and sanctity of sainthood. As the embodiment
of sunna and the living link to God, Zauqi Shah suggests, the Sufi shaykh is
deserving of the highest degree of honor and respect.
While the stories individual Chishti Sabiri disciples narrate about their
experiences with Sufi masters vary, they share one common theme: an
intense, overwhelming love for the shaykh. To a large extent, love ('ishq) is
the foundation of the entire system of Chishti Sabiri doctrine and practice.
Murids describe this love for their shaykh as the manifestation of love for the
Prophet Muhammad and ultimately for God. Shahidullah Faridi explains this
connection:
Because the Shaykh combines in himself the outward observance (shariat)

with the inner enlightenment (tariqat) and is one of the specially guided ones
sent by Allah to call to the path of His Prophet (may Allah bless and keep him),
admiration stimulates the pupil to emulate him, and the inspiration of his
example urges him forward on the path. When admiration deepens and is
transformed into love, then all other incentives are merged into this one great
attraction. The relationship with the guide of love and respect provide
him with all his disciplines, enthusiasm, spirit of emulation and keenness to
reach the goal, and becomes the main stepping-stone to success in achieving
nearness to Allah.38
Teaching Sufism 161
Given the intensity and intimacy of the master-disciple relationship, Chishti

Sabiri murids speak about their shaykhs in the most emotive of terms. They
recall the interactions with their spiritual mentors in exacting detail, remem-
bering conversations and events that happened years, even decades, before.
With remarkable consistency, Chishti Sabiri disciples characterize their
connection with the shaykh as the most important relationship in their lives,
eclipsing all others. “He was my father, my friend, my teacher,” a Malaysian
male murid assured me when asked about Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani. “There
was just no one else like him in my life” (October 6, 2001, Kuala Lumpur).
Not even the ties of family and friendship, disciples say, compare to this bond
with the Sufi master. In the words of a novice murid of Shaykh Siraj 'Ali
recorded at the death anniversary ('urs) of Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani,
I always find myself always thinking about my shaykh. This attraction is amazing.
It’s a true miracle. I never met Hazrat Shahidullah or Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh, may
God have mercy on them. I have never met a shaykh besides Hazrat Siraj Sahab.
Yet here I am traveling all this way to go to the 'urs in a village, Allahabad.
Why? There is simply this strong attraction. I can’t explain this, even to other
Muslims. You don’t feel this way with any other people—not your family, not
with your wife. This attraction makes sense with your family, your parents, peo-
ple you know so well and see everyday. But this attraction to a shaykh is the real
miracle. It is just so helpful in life to know there is always someone you can turn
to for help. (February 13, 2001, Allahabad)
For Chishti Sabiri disciples, it is only the strength of this bond with the
master, rooted in love, which makes it possible to endure the sacrifices and
burdens of the Sufi path. Moreover, this relationship transcends time and
space—even beyond physical death. According to Chishti Sabiri doctrine, a
shaykh’s spiritual powers only increase after death. “The Sufi saint is like a
sword unsheathed upon his death,” a male Pakistani disciple told me. “In life
they must strictly follow the shari'a. But once they have passed the threshold,
God puts no limits on their powers” (October 22, 2000, Lahore).39 The
boundary between this world and the afterlife, murids insist, is porous for a
perfected Sufi master. Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq records a moving conversation on
this subject. On September 1, 1942 (20 Sha'ban, 1361), Zauqi Shah held an
emotional gathering with his followers. In this exchange, the shaykh prefig-
ures his own death, even as he assures his disciples of guidance from beyond
the grave:
Hazrat [Zauqi Shah] had fallen ill. He said, “This body gives me a great deal of
pain. It is nothing but a cage. I will be happy when the time comes to get ride
of it; at that time I will finally be free. That day will be a day of great celebra-
tion.” The slave [Shahidullah Faridi] said to him, “You will be happy, but we
will not. Our future will be uncertain.” The shaykh replied, “There will be no
change in the teaching (ta'lim). It will continue despite the physical separation.
In fact, the teaching from there [beyond the grave] will be on an even wider
scale.” I then said, “Even so, there will be no possibility for conversation and
clarification on small matters.” He replied, “Even that is possible. That door

will remain open as well.”40
During my interviews, many disciples confirmed the continuity of this

living connection with a deceased spiritual master. Drawing on their own
personal experiences, they described how the shaykh continues to provide
protection and succor in times of personal crisis and spiritual doubt from
beyond the grave. A male Pakistani disciple describes this by referencing
the Qur'an:
The most important thing is that the murid should be satisfied that he has a real
connection with the shaykh. During periods of turmoil and difficulties, he sees
his shaykh. They come to you only when you’re in trouble. Otherwise they are
too busy with other matters. They appear in times of grave trouble, when you
really need them, when you’re absolutely helpless. They come and tell you,
“Do not worry, we are with you.” These are living souls, you see. This is a liv-
ing connection. These are the people about whom Allah says in the Qur'an
[3:169], “Do not think that those who have died in the way of Allah are dead.
No, they are living, finding sustenance in the presence of their Lord.”
More poignantly, several disciples recalled the miraculous appearance of their

own spiritual guide in moments of distress and personal tragedy. For others,
the relationship with the deceased shaykh manifests in more subtle ways. “The
presence of a shaykh increases after he is gone. I feel that strongly,” a female
disciple explained. “Since his [Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh’s] death, the pull
towards him in every passing year is growing. When I pray, I always sense that
he is there. He has become an integral part of my thought processes. I feel
that he is now my conscience. There is still so much love” (February 26,
2001, Lahore). As these testimonies affirm, the relationship with the teach-
ing shaykh is central to the social and spiritual lives of contemporary Chishti
Sabiri murids. Experienced through companionship and through love and
devotion, it is an unbreakable bond that transcends and ultimately transforms
death itself.
Chishti Sabiri Texts and

Teaching Networks
While the transmission of Chishti Sabiri knowledge ultimately rests on the
face-to-face exchange with the teaching master, there are additional resources
that disciples draw upon for clarification and reinforcement. Selective texts
provide an especially important supplemental source of guidance, inspiration,
and edification. The text par excellence for Chishti Sabiris—as for all Muslims
everywhere—is the Qur'an. Murids recite it constantly, quote from it in daily
conversations, and discuss its meaning in private and public forums. For
insights regarding the specifics of Sufi doctrine and ritual practice, however,
they also turn to the literary legacy of past spiritual masters. In both Pakistan
Teaching Sufism 163
and Malaysia, Urdu and English translations of classical Sufi works are read,
discussed, and reread. The writings of Sayyid 'Ali ibn 'Uthman al-Hujwiri
(d. 1074), Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Ibn al-'Arabi
(d. 1240), Shihab ad-Din Abu Hafs 'Umar al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234), and Jalal
ad-Din Rumi (d. 1273) are especially popular. The reading and interpreta-
tion of the words of such premodern Sufi luminaries play a central role in the
transmission of Chishti Sabiri knowledge. In a very real sense, books bind
today’s disciples to their spiritual predecessors.
Contemporary Chishti Sabiri shaykhs purposefully employ premodern
Sufi texts as teaching aids. On occasion they explicitly order their disciples to
read certain books, and they often discuss these texts with murids in teaching
circles. The pedagogical importance of Sufi writings is illuminated in an
exchange between Zauqi Shah and his circle of followers recorded in
Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq:
Hazrat [Zauqi Shah] gave us a lesson on Imam Ghazali’s book, Tibb-i Jismani
o Tibb-i Ruhani [Bodily Medicine and Spiritual Medicine]. When the lesson was
finished, Hazrat Shah Shahidullah Sahab said, “This should be read two or
three times.” Hazrat replied, “It should be read ten times. The writings of the
noble saints [awliya'-i kuram] provide the same kind of blessing as the Qur'an
which offers new meanings and disclosures each time it is recited. In reading it
over and over, new dimensions are revealed. This is because the perfect human
being [insan-i kamil] is the representative [khalifa] of God Most High.
A saint’s writings match his lofty state.”41
As Zauqi Shah illustrates, the writings of renowned Sufi masters offer an

invaluable wellspring of supplemental knowledge. Rooted in personal experi-
ence, the works of premodern masters complement and deepen the oral
teachings murids receive at the feet of their own shaykhs. In effect, Sufi
hagiographies offer a ready made blueprint for adab. As a senior male
Pakistani disciple notes, “We learn about etiquette through observation and
guidance, through word of mouth. You certainly don’t get a manual on what
to do and not do with your shaykh. But there are obviously traditions about
the Prophet, the pious caliphs, and the Imams on how to conduct yourself.
Every shaykh has spoken about it as well. Whatever they have taught is
recorded by their disciples or successors in the form of spiritual discourses
[malfuzat]. So guidance also comes from reading” (March 22, 2001,
Islamabad).
The malfuzat of the major saints of the Chishti tradition are among the
order’s most popular and revered literary resources. The spiritual discourses
of the renowned thirteenth-century luminary Shaykh Nizam ad-Din Awliya'
play an especially important role as teaching aids. Both the famous malfuzat,
Fawa'id al-Fu'ad, and a less-known and more enigmatic version, Nizami
Bansari, are widely circulated and often discussed among today’s disciples.
Nizami Bansari is a particularly intriguing text. In florid prose, the book
recounts a broad range of stories about Shaykh Nizam ad-Din that both echo
and amplify the moral lessons and biographical data recorded in the classic
Fawa'id al-Fu'ad. The oldest extant version of Nizami Bansari was pub-
lished in Urdu by the Indian Chishti Nizami activist and bibliophile Khwaja
Hasan Nizami (1878–1955).42 According to Nizami, the original text was
composed in Persian and compiled by a contemporary disciple of Nizam ad-
Din: a Hindu prince from the Deccan named Rajkumar Hardev. Although
this is a tantalizing possibility, it is also impossible to verify since no record of
either the original Persian text or its elusive author exists. In the absence of
such tangible evidence, it is possible to speculate that the book may have
been the product of Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s own prodigious imagination.
Regardless of its historical authenticity, however, contemporary Chishti
Sabiris view Nizami Bansari as an authoritative account of the Sufi master-
disciple relationship. The silsila has published an edition of Nizami’s Urdu
text and, more recently, a new English translation entitled A Diary of a
Disciple of Nizamudin Aulia [sic]. In consulting the book for insights on
Sufi doctrine and practice, today’s disciples highlight distinct parallels
between the moral lessons of Shaykh Nizam ad-Din and their own contem-
porary spiritual masters.
For today’s Chishti Sabiris, the books that matter most are the silsila’s own
publications—from the discourses of its twentieth-century shaykhs to their
own myriad doctrinal works. Collectively, this diverse corpus of texts pre-
serves the teachings of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani for a new generation of Chishti Sabiri followers.
Most of the shaykhs’ works are now readily available in printed editions and
widely distributed through the silsila’s publication networks in both Pakistan
and Malaysia. Published in both Urdu and English, these books are increas-
ingly accessible to a broad, international community of readers. As we have
seen, Chishti Sabiri masters were keenly aware of the power of the printed
word. They viewed texts as both pedagogical aids for their followers and as
polemical tools to counter pervasive misconceptions about the Sufi tradition.
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani in particular was determined to write for a broad
audience in a simple, accessible style. As a senior Pakistani disciple illustrates,
the shaykh hoped to inspire and to edify multiple audiences:
These books offer guidance on many questions. They are written in simple
Urdu and English. That is very important. I remember I once asked Hazrat
Wahid Bakhsh, “You have told me to read books. I’ve tried to read them, but
most are written in such difficult Urdu that I’ve not been able to understand.
They do not keep my interest.” He said, “That is exactly what I am doing,
trying to translate into simple Urdu so that more people can read and under-
stand.” He wrote his books especially for his murids. We are duty-bound to
read them. I think he was also upset about a lot of the criticism and incorrect
concepts that have developed about Sufism. He wanted the general public to
understand the real meaning of Sufism. (November 4, 2000, Lahore)
Contemporary Chishti Sabiri masters clearly understand the utility of

texts. For them, books preserve the order’s collective memory. At the same
time, they serve as signposts to guide the individual seeker’s journey along
Teaching Sufism 165
the Sufi path. In his personal will, Shahidullah Faridi made this aim explicit:
“The books that have already been published have instructions by the saints
of our silsila which must be read and kept in mind by all in the silsila.”43 In
keeping with this directive, Chishti Sabiri texts are fully integrated into the
practice of Sufi pedagogy. As vital teaching aids books serve as a primer for
novices and a reference guide for advanced murids. Disciples of all ages and
backgrounds consult the order’s publications for practical advice regarding
their own spiritual experiences. Significantly, murids insist that the silsila’s
books should be read in a particular order, a sequence that mirrors the
progressive stages of the Sufi path. A senior Malaysian disciple explains this
rationale:
Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh used to say that everything you need to know you can
find in these letters and books. I have found that to be true. These books are
for us, the murids. Look at the sequence of the books. They are like the jour-
ney itself: from fana' [annihilation of the self] to baqa' [permanence in God].
Islamic Sufism comes first. He [Wahid Bakhsh] brings us through the basics in
Islamic Sufism. It is the primer and we all read that. Then you have books like
A Guide for Spiritual Aspirants [the malfuzat of Shah Sayyid Waris Hasan]. It
is a deeply spiritual book. Then you go still deeper with Kashf al-mahjub [a
translation of the Persian classic by al-Hujwiri]. That delves into all the deeper
levels of Sufism. Then you come back to earth, back to the world. This book
[Wahid Bakhsh’s Immense Power Potential of Pakistan] is the culmination. It
brings us back to the reality of the world and shows us what is involved there.
(October 1, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
For murids, the act of reading constitutes a form of conversation. Much

like the intimate, personal exchanges with the shaykh, texts have the potential
to provide immediate answers to vexing questions. “You may not believe
this,” a female Pakistani disciple assured me, “but often when I open a book
the answer to my questions appears. I think that the message is given to you,
one way or another. Guidance may come through a dream, directly through
your pir, through somebody’s remark, or in a book. I believe it is the shaykh
working behind the scenes. That is why I now consult books more and
more” (February 26, 2001, Lahore). While not all disciples experience such
miraculous guidance, murids readily agree that texts do amplify and clarify
the lessons of the master-disciple relationship. And since the printed word is
permanent, disciples find in books a constant, renewable source of supple-
mentary knowledge and insight.
Many Chishti Sabiri murids find yet another wellspring for spiritual guid-
ance in letters. Twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri shaykhs—in particular Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani—maintained a long and detailed correspondence with
their disciples who they were not able to meet with regularly in person.
During my interviews, several disciples shared selections from their personal
letters with me. Without exception, they are poignant and personalized,
containing a wealth of advice on both spiritual and worldly matters. The con-
tents range from detailed explications of doctrine and Islamic law, spiritual
exercises, and dream interpretation to more mundane advice regarding

family relationships, professional, and educational decisions. Not surprisingly,
these personal letters are treasured as heirlooms. They are constantly read and
reread and often shared with fellow disciples. Many murids take great pains
to preserve this correspondence with their teacher. A Malaysian disciple, for
example, has gone so far as to laminate her letters from Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani and store them in bound notebooks. On Wahid Bakhsh’s recom-
mendation, she has photocopied selections from this collection and distrib-
uted them among her fellow murids. The circulation of personal letters is, in
fact, a relatively common practice among disciples on both sides of the Indian
Ocean. According to another female Malaysian disciple,
Every time you reread the letters and the books, it brings out new meanings.
[A senior Pakistani female disciple] sent us photocopies of her letters from
our shaykh. I found a lot of answers from there, questions I wanted to ask but
never asked. It was all in those letters. We [Malaysian disciples] all used to share
letters—general things that we could share. Personal, private things you do
not share. We would photocopy sections. Sometimes our shaykh specifically told
us to show a letter to this or that person. In rereading these letters you find inspi-
ration and answers. We have a whole stack of them from our brothers and sisters
that we photocopied in the late 1980s. (October 3, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
By exchanging their personal letters Chishti Sabiri murids facilitate and

perpetuate the teaching process, communicating the shaykh’s spiritual
wisdom to a continuously expanding audience even in his absence.
Chishti Sabiris view texts as invaluable pedagogical tools. They are quick
to stress, however, that real meaning and deeper knowledge of Sufi books are
ultimately unintelligible to an outside, uninformed reader. The writings of
Sufi masters, disciples insist, are fully accessible only to adepts—those whose
reading is guided and nuanced through direct interaction with a living Sufi
master. “Tasawwuf is not to be found in books,” writes Zauqi Shah. “The
saints have written them merely as a guide for experts in the art of Sufism.
Commoners can receive no benefit from them. After all, what could a layman
possibly understand from reading a book of medicine? For this very reason
Shaykh al-Akbar, Hazrat Ibn 'Arabi declared, ‘It is forbidden for the uniniti-
ated to study my books.’”44 In the absence of guidance, the reading of Sufi
texts is little more than spiritual voyeurism.
To emphasize this central point, an elder Pakistani disciple narrated the
following anecdote communicated to him by Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh: “I recall
Captain Wahid Bakhsh Sahab saying, ‘Once I was passing along the street
near Baba Sahab [the tomb of Baba Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar in
Pakpattan], and I thought, ‘Baba Sahab has not left a large number of books
for us to read.’ At that moment a voice came to me; it was the voice of Baba
Sahab. He said, ‘You are my books!’ You see, the shaykhs are the living books.
Whatever you receive from them you cannot get from books” (April 30, 2001,
Bahawalpur). In this story, Wahid Bakhsh’s mystical encounter with the saint
of Pakpattan conveys a simple but clear message. For a twentieth-century Sufi
Teaching Sufism 167
master obsessed with writing, the vision of his renowned thirteenth-century

predecessor illuminates the superiority of experiential wisdom over abstract,
theoretical book knowledge. It is a lesson that is not lost on contemporary
disciples. Time and again in interviews Chishti Sabiri disciples repeated a
common theme: there are simply no shortcuts along the Sufi path. No book
can replace the face-to-face interchange with the spiritual master, they assert.
And no amount of reading can substitute for the rigors of ritual work and the
transformative power of experience. In the words of another senior Pakistani
murid, “Suluk is a very detailed and difficult thing. It is not something that
can be done by reading books! It is a way of life and it is a discipline that you
must inculcate in yourself. Above all it is an intention [niyyat] which you have
to make. These books make references to certain situations and certain expe-
riences that may not be elaborated [by the teaching shaykh]. These books are
a help for completing suluk, but they are not a substitute for it” (May 21, 2001,
Karachi). For today’s disciples, the order’s books effectively enshrine a dis-
tinct Chishti Sabiri canon, preserving and perpetuating the silsila’s collective
wisdom and corporate identity. For the uninitiated, however, texts are at best
invitations to Sufi practice.
Horizontal Pedagogy: Disciples

Teaching Disciples
Another vital outlet for the acquisition of knowledge is found in a horizontal
teaching network that allows Chishti Sabiri disciples to learn directly from
their peers. This interpersonal nexus further complements and clarifies the
fundamental vertical master-disciple relationship. Though the progress of
each disciple ultimately depends on personal effort, murids provide their spir-
itual compatriots with a vital spiritual support system. In private and public
settings, disciples share experiences; clarify doubts, ambiguities, and anxi-
eties; and participate in collective ritual activities. Beyond the face-to-face
interaction with the shaykh, in fact, murids learn a great deal about the rules
of adab by observing and listening to one another. Novices in particular look
to senior disciples as repositories of wisdom and the embodiment of tradi-
tion. According to a young male disciple from Pakistan, “Adab is practice.
You learn by observing, by meeting your pir-bhais [‘brothers of the master,’
or fellow disciples] who are older than you and who have more experience.
They know things about the masha'ikh, what they used to do. They know
everything, even the shaykh’s favorite sweets, the color of his clothes. So adab
is learned by meeting these murids and by asking them questions. It’s a life-
time of discovery with people” (September 2, 2001, Karachi). In this Sufi
spiritual meritocracy, authority comes with experience.
The Chishti Sabiri horizontal teaching network provides a safe, supportive,
and informal forum for disciples to ask questions and clarify matters that they
may hesitate to put before the shaykh. As with the sharing of personal letters,
disciples continuously circulate stories. Memories of interactions with the
shaykh form a vital dimension of each disciple’s life history and sense of
personal identity. And these private stories, in turn, are communicated to

others in various public forums in the interest of edification or clarification.
Over time, these personal narratives form an integral part of the silsila’s
collective memory.
There is a striking fluidity to these oral narratives. When discussing the
nuances of Sufi doctrine and practice, disciples quote from their shaykhs, from
each other, and even from texts in order to elaborate their points. In these
accounts, the original source is often ambiguous or altogether erased.
Disciples often begin with an open-ended sentence, such as “Someone had a
dream that . . . ,” “In a text I read, a shaykh declared that . . . ,” or “I have
been told that . . . .” The anonymity of authorship emphasizes the moral
message over and above the identity of the messenger. It is also indicative of
a pervasive tendency for murids to abstract themselves out of the story. In
keeping with the dictates of adab and its emphasis on the virtues of self-
abnegation, disciples are constantly attuned to hierarchy. They are careful to
avoid appearing boastful and are especially wary of making claims to spiritual
experiences that they may not fully understand. In the words of a senior
Pakistani disciple,
People normally will not relate their own experiences. That is a prerequisite.
The exception is for the purpose of education, or teaching or guidance.
Nobody should say, “I had this experience” or “I saw the Prophet, God bless
him and grant him salvation, in my dream.” No! He will say that “somebody”
saw it. You do not attribute it to yourself in public. That is modesty. And that
is the teaching of the mashai'kh of our silsila as well. The biggest enemy is your
ego [nafs]. Whatever augments your ego must be crushed. That is the most dif-
ficult thing to do. (September 1, 2001, Karachi)
As this quote suggests, Chishti Sabiri teachings consistently emphasize both

the importance of humility and the danger of spiritual pride.
By drawing on each other’s collective wisdom and experience, murids gain
invaluable insights into the order’s institutional history, doctrinal teachings,
and ritual practices. Among the most important venues for these interper-
sonal exchanges are the annual pilgrimages to Sufi shrines for the death
anniversaries ('urs) of the silsila’s major saints. Pilgrimage punctuates the
Chishti Sabiri ritual calendar. During the 'urs commemorations, disciples live
together for an intensive week of spiritual immersion and collective ritual
practice in the company of the teaching shaykh. As Shahidullah Faridi notes,
“Another big advantage of attending the 'urs is to learn the etiquette [adab]
in group association.”45 During the days of the 'urs retreat, disciples can be
found sitting together in small groups between the organized periods for
prayer and ritual disciplines. While sharing tea and food, they exchange per-
sonal experiences and narrate stories about past spiritual masters and the
teachings of their own shaykhs. In the words of a young Pakistani male novice,
A lot of guidance comes indirectly through these group activities. I missed
three or four 'urs because of my job. The 'urs in Allahabad [the shrine of Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani] was one of the first 'urs I have been to in two years. I was
Teaching Sufism 169
amazed at the amount of things I picked up, and realized I was missing, just by
living with the other murids. If a murid had sat with the shaykh three years ago
and heard him say something, he would narrate that. Or someone would say
that he read something in a book and then discussed it with the shaykh, and his
interpretation was this or that. We keep learning in this way. (March 22, 2001,
Islamabad)
The annual pilgrimage cycle offers vital opportunities for Chishti Sabiris to
benefit from the knowledge and experiences of their peers through a complex
nexus of storytelling.
The day-to-day life of the Chishti Sabiri community is marked by an
atmosphere of genuine camaraderie. This is not to suggest, however, that
murids do not experience moments of confusion and conflict. They do.
During the course of my fieldwork, I heard numerous disciples complain
about backbiting, petty squabbling, and competition among their peers. On
several separate occasions, female murids voiced feelings of alienation and
marginalization, frustrated with what they perceived as entrenched patriar-
chal practices within both the silsila and society at large. More commonly,
disciples—male and female, Pakistani and Malaysian—expressed anxiety
about the difficulties of balancing their Sufi practices with the demands of
their worldly lives. Novice disciples in particular seem particularly aware of
the gaps between the ideals of doctrine and the realities of everyday practice.
They worry that they will not be able to maintain the discipline and dedica-
tion required of the serious salik. They also struggle to make sense of their
own spiritual experiences, at times overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy
and indecision. These moments of ambiguity demonstrate, as Catherine Bell
suggests, that religious beliefs are often unstable and “even the basic symbols
of a community’s ritual life, can be very unclear to participants or interpreted
by them in very dissimilar ways.”46
As an outsider I was not often privy to confessions of confusion—but I
heard them enough to conclude that such moments of dissonance are signif-
icant. Though difficult to measure, they suggest that a pervasive and deep-
seated ambivalence about Sufi identity underlies daily life in contemporary,
postcolonial Pakistan and Malaysia. This is not surprising since in both coun-
tries, the twenty-first-century Sufi subject is assaulted with multiple, compet-
ing social, cultural, and political ideologies. For Chishti Sabiri disciples, these
pervasive tensions are further exacerbated by social environments in which
Sufi piety and practice is increasingly controversial. Katherine Ewing traces
this ambivalence in her ethnography of popular Pakistani Sufism. In her
assessment, “Many highly educated Pakistanis who regard themselves as
modern, rational, and professional are also caught between ideologies, incon-
sistent in their self-representations, uncertain about how to articulate their
relationships to Islam and to modernity. Many are drawn to Sufism and yet
avoid identifying themselves as Sufis. Their conversations about Sufism dis-
play an ambivalence and show evidence of intense conflict.”47
On several occasions, I noticed a similar dynamic among Chishti Sabiri
disciples. Murids are noticeably wary of announcing their Sufi affiliations to
strangers, and consciously avoid arguments over Sufism in the home, at work,
and in public spaces. In private—and among their fellow disciples—however,
Chishti Sabiris wear their silsila affiliation with immense pride. It is at the
very core of their self-identity. Within the bounded confines of the silsila,
what is perhaps most striking is the relative infrequency of dissonance and dis-
ruption between murids. In both theory and practice, the order’s vertical
(pir-murid) and horizontal (murid-murid) teaching networks promote a cul-
ture that minimizes and ameliorates doubt and discord. Beyond the spheres
of work and family, disciples spend a great deal of time together—in both for-
mal worship and informal social interaction. They communicate mutual
respect and a deep affection for each other through their language, gestures,
and bodily comportment. Disciples share a common vocabulary to articulate
their experiences, and they express remarkably uniform definitions of identity
and selfhood. At every turn, the silsila places great stress on fostering and
preserving communal harmony. Etiquette and social propriety are highly
valued—and actively cultivated.
These virtues, of course, are at the very core of Sufi adab. In fact, Chishti
Sabiri shaykhs define an ethic of cooperation and mutual respect among
murids as a religious duty. It is also seen as a manifestation of prophetic
sunna. In his final will and testament (wasyat nama), Shahidullah Faridi
makes this explicit:
It is therefore necessary that each one considers himself in service to the others
and to try to give comfort to his brothers in every way. Any kind of selfish
behavior, grouping, envy, quarreling, or not talking to one another is against
the etiquette of society and must be abstained from strictly. Huzoor (S) [the
Prophet Muhammad], chief of God’s creation, has said, “become the true ser-
vants of your Lord and brothers” (kunu ibadallah ikhwana'). The Prophet of
Allah has also proclaimed that one who is not respectful to the elders and com-
passionate to the young is not one of us. Therefore it is obligatory on the eld-
ers of the silsila to treat the young with loving kindness and attend to improve
and guide them. In the same way it is necessary for the young to treat the eld-
ers with regard and respect.48
This constant emphasis on social propriety and decorum permeates every

dimension of Chishti Sabiri social interaction. The love that murids express
for their shaykhs is mirrored in the experience of friendship and intimacy
between fellow disciples. In the words of a senior female Malaysian disciple,
“My love for them [murids] is sometimes greater than my love for my chil-
dren. We have strong ties, mothers and children, yet even that is no compar-
ison to this love! The love of my pir-brothers and sisters is an expression of
the love for my shaykh. And love for my shaykh is love for Allah” (October 6,
2001, Kuala Lumpur). In the final analysis, it is the strength of these bonds
of fellowship that ultimately cements the Chishti Sabiri silsila as a coherent,
corporate institution—a network of piety and practice that endures even as it
continues to adapt to changing times.
Teaching Sufism 171
Conclusion
Twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri Sufis preserve a distinct discursive and
ritual tradition. As their spiritual ancestors before them, they do so within a
bounded moral community that is firmly centered on the master-disciple
teaching relationship and mediated by established rules of etiquette. The
worldview of these modern Sufi subjects is rooted in what Dipesh
Chakrabarty calls “the temporal heterogeneity of the ‘now.’”49 Today’s disci-
ples effectively live within two interdependent spheres: a “historical now”
and a “sacred now.” From the perspective of the “historical now,” murids live
and work amid the shifting landscape of postcolonial Pakistan and Malaysia.
As members of extended family networks, economic consumers and produc-
ers, and citizens of modern nation-states, they are fully immersed in the social
practices of the everyday, lived-in, mundane world. They mark the trajectory
of their daily lives by secular time—the chronology of positivist history, meas-
ured by the calendar and the clock. Yet at the very same time, Chishti Sabiri
disciples engage a transhistorical “sacred now” that is no less concrete, tangi-
ble, and real. As pious Muslims and spiritual seekers, they live within a
thoroughly sacralized universe that impacts every dimension of their public
and private selves. In this world, time and meaning are subject to different
rules altogether. Within the “sacred now,” disciples orient themselves within
a teaching tradition that binds them directly to the timeless, transcendent
moral authority of the Prophet Muhammad. In effect, this temporal simul-
taneity is an experience that positivist history simply does not have the vocab-
ulary to explain or the tools to measure. As Chakrabarty illustrates, this
ontological “now” collapses the logic of secular space and linear time, erasing
the rigid boundaries between the remembered, sacred past and the lived-in
world of everyday practice.50
For today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples, it is the teaching shaykh who provides
the tangible link to Islam’s sacred past. As the heir of the Prophet, the Sufi
master serves as the embodiment of sunna, the standard bearer of adab, and
the arbiter of shari'a. In the words of a senior Pakistani murid, “Our shaykh
is a mujtahid [a legal scholar] for us. Whatever he says, that is hadith and that
is Qur'an. We never ask, ‘From where did you get this?’ Whatever he receives,
he receives from the Holy Prophet, from his lineage. If his teachings are
against the traditions or against the Holy Qur'an, then he is no shaykh, even
if he can fly in the air or walk on water! If he is against shari'a, against sunna,
against the Qur'an, then we will never follow him” (April 28, 2001,
Bahawalpur). The intense and intimate relationship with the spiritual guide
provides Chishti Sabiri disciples a shelter from the corrupting influences of
the world, even as they continue to engage that world. As a living symbol of
Islamic piety in practice, the shaykh signifies the possibility for spiritual trans-
formation amid the incongruities and inconsistencies of ordinary life.
Within the contemporary Chishti Sabiri silsila, spiritual training remains
centered on an interpersonal teaching network that favors direct experience
over abstract theorizing. For disciples, the transformative encounter with the
spiritual master initiates a process of deconstruction. In Sufi practice, the dis-
ciple learns to reconstitute the bodily and mental practices that bind him/her
to the world in pursuit of the deeper dimensions of intuitive, experiential
knowledge. In Zauqi Shah’s words, “We spend a good deal of the earlier por-
tion of our life in physical bondage. Our libraries and laboratories only
tighten the bond. Even independent thinking creates fresh chains for us. The
moment we come into contact with the Sheikh [sic], we enter upon a new era
of liberation. The ties are loosened, the chains broken, and the journey
begins. From the seen, we gradually move on to the unseen and, after plung-
ing into the fathomless depth of the Unseen, we revert to the seen to com-
plete our course.”51
This inner journey from shari'a to tariqa to haqiqa demands a careful
balance between acquiescence and action. The Sufi novice submits to the
shaykh “like a corpse in the hands of a washerman” even as she/he cultivates
self-awareness through personal discipline, sacrifice, patience, and love. The
seeker does not walk the path alone, however. Chishti Sabiri networks of
knowledge and practice are communicated and experienced through a broad
network of teaching relationships. In face-to-face companionship with the
shaykh and the community of believers, the murid’s body, mind, and soul are
gradually refashioned. The ultimate aim is the total transformation of a secu-
lar, heteronomous self into a sacralized, moral Muslim self. Within this sys-
tem, Chishti Sabiri pedagogy is primarily oral and aural. Disciples learn from
each other via a complex, symbiotic nexus of stories that reinforces and
refines the central pir-murid relationship. Nevertheless, disciples insist that
discourse and language have their limits. In the end, Sufi doctrine must be
interiorized through the direct experience of ritual practice. An ethnography
of the embodied ritual performances at the center of contemporary Chishti
Sabiri identity is the subject of chapter 5.
Chapter 5
Experiencing S ufism: The

Discipline of Ritual P ractice
A mid the shifting social and political landscape of twenty-first-century

Pakistan and Malaysia, ritual practice anchors Chishti Sabiri identity. The Sufi
path (suluk) couples a distinct model of human psychology with practical
techniques for self-transformation. In an informal, introductory letter written
to a female Malaysian disciple, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani outlines
the Sufi model of the self and details how religious knowledge is experienced
and actualized through ritual performance. His words encapsulate the Sufi
spiritual journey, both in theory and in practice:
I will tell you some of the basic spiritual exercises which will, if God the Most
High wills, enable you to get spiritual knowledge and also keep you from evil
influences. But before I go any further I would like to tell you something about
the reality of man. Every man and woman is a combination of a body and soul.
The body is of earthly origin and has a tendency to pull you downwards. The
soul is of Divine origin, as shown by Allah in the Holy Qur'an. Therefore it has
a tendency to pull you upwards to Divine nearness. Human life is therefore the
name of a constant struggle, a tug of war, between the two forces: the beastly
force, called al-nafs al-ammara bil-su' in the Holy Qur'an, and the spiritual
force called al-nafs al-mutma'inna. If the lower self or beastly self gets stronger
and overpowers the spiritual self, one is ruined. If, however, the spiritual self
overpowers the beastly self, one is successful and realizes his true destiny of
reaching Divine nearness and presence which is also called “salvation.”
Now all the Islamic teachings—prayer, the fast, Hajj, charity—are meant to
strengthen the soul and weaken the lower self. In order to accelerate the pace
of progress, spiritual masters have prescribed a spiritual path comprising some
extra struggles (mujahada). This extra worship has been urged in the following
hadith of the Holy Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation: “Allah says:
When my servant wishes to come closer to me by additional worship, I love him
and come so close to him that I become his eyes, and he sees by me, I become
his ears, and he hears by me, I become his hands, and he works by me, I become
his feet and he walks by me, and I give him whatever he desires.” Now what is
that extra worship? It is a combination of zikrs, prayers, awrad [supplications]
and other exercises that strengthen the spiritual force in man and weaken the
beastly forces.1
By invoking the Qur'an and the legacy of the Prophet, Wahid Bakhsh
portrays Sufism as a natural extension of the orthodox ritual requirements
incumbent on all Muslims ('ibadat). Sufi rituals do not replace normative
practice, the shaykh suggests; they expand and deepen it. Like any pious
Muslim, the Sufi adept begins with a strict adherence to the arkan. These five
fundamental “pillars” of faith are then supplemented with a regimen of extra-
canonical Sufi rituals expressly aimed at taming the ego. The particular rigors
of Sufi ritual, Wahid Bakhsh asserts, involve a conscious and deliberate
remaking of the self. The starting point for the Sufi path of purification is the
source of human frailty: “the soul that commands evil” (al-nafs al-ammara
bil-su'; Qur'an 12:53). Through repentance and renunciation the spiritual
seeker attempts to tame the ego’s base instincts and voracious appetites. With
patience and determination, worldly desires are gradually replaced with an
insatiable desire for God. The Sufi is aided in this quest by an activated con-
science that oversees and guides his/her actions, “the blaming soul” (al-nafs
al-lawwama; Qur'an 75:2). This entire process of self-refashioning is spurred
by the rigors of ritual discipline. Under the guidance of a teaching shaykh, the
adept voluntarily submits to a host of supererogatory practices (awrad)
designed to mold the body, sharpen the mind, and purify the soul. For the
intrepid disciple, the reward is self-awareness and a pacified soul that serves as
the vehicle to salvation. In the words of the Qur'an (89:27–30), “Soul at
peace [al-nafs al-mutma'inna], return to your Lord, both pleased and
pleasing [me]; enter among my servants, and enter my paradise!”
Borrowing from Foucault, it is useful to describe Sufi ritual practices as
“technologies of the self.”2 For Chishti Sabiris, true knowledge about the
nature of the self and its relationship to God is not found in abstract philos-
ophizing or the academic parsing of legal and theological debate. Instead,
spiritual progress demands work. The word mujahada (spiritual “striving”)
comes from the same Arabic root as jihad. For Sufis, mujahada centers on a
retinue of rituals—techniques for mental concentration, combined with
physical postures—that together create religious experience and communi-
cate religious truth. These prescribed ritual acts offer the Sufi adept a tangi-
ble, tactile, and immediate source of knowledge. In Chishti Sabiri practice,
rituals are taught to individual disciples by the teaching shaykh and subse-
quently reinforced and rationalized through a social network of learning.
The locus and focus of Sufi ritual techniques is the physical body.
Ultimately, understanding comes only from doing because “what is done
with the body is the ground of what is thought and said.”3 Within the Sufi
pedagogical system, the body serves both as a medium for knowledge and the
primary tool for the remolding of the self. In the words of Shaykh
Muhammad Zauqi Shah, “A vigorous body and a powerful soul, although
Experiencing Sufism 175
quite valuable in themselves, are not the objects of life. They are only means
to an end. The body is merely an instrument to the soul. The soul is the agent
of the ‘I’ dwelling within, and this ‘I’ again is an echo of the Real, Genuine,
All-perfect ‘I’ which dwells neither within nor without, dwells nowhere and
dwells everywhere and is the only existing Reality before whom everything
else dwindles into a mere shadow.”4 By surrendering to the will of a spiritual
master, the Sufi disciple learns to rehabituate the self through a program of
rigorous and routinized ritual practice. Through the disciplining the body,
the ego is gradually transformed and ultimately transcended. In keeping with
the famous prophetic hadith, “die before you die,” the ultimate aim is to
reshape the acculturated, socialized, secular self into a sacralized, moral Sufi
subject. As Scott Kugle notes, “By advocating that one die to one’s own self,
mystics loosen the habitual bonds that bind the self to the socially constituted
body. This provides a space and freedom to re-discipline the body, to train it
in a new set of stances, a new pattern of postures, a new repertoire of ges-
tures. In short, mystics offer a method of acquiring a whole new bodily habi-
tus, a new ground of being, driven not by selfish desires but rather by the
embodiment of virtues.”5 For Chishti Sabiris, ritual serves as the primary
vehicle for the interiorization of knowledge. Ritual practice, in other words,
is the key to spiritual perfection.
Twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri disciples remain connected to Islam’s
sacred past through genealogy, networks of knowledge, and a nexus of
embodied ritual practices. Murids view these spiritual resources as the direct
legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. For them, the Sufi path is a timeless, uni-
versal teaching—as relevant today as it was in the seventh century. At the
same time, they also understand that the tradition cannot remain static. Since
Sufism does not exist in a hermetically sealed vacuum, disciples acknowledge,
it must respond and adapt to social change if it is to survive.
Today’s Chishti Sabiris look back on their premodern predecessors with a
palpable sense of envy and nostalgia. They regretfully accept, however, that
the days of the traditional khanaqah—the premodern Sufi lodge memorial-
ized in classical texts—have come and gone. I asked a senior Pakistani male
disciple if the khanaqah was an institution that could function in the modern
world. His response reveals how many Chishti Sabiri disciples think about the
weight of tradition in the context of their own twenty-first-century lives:
Is the khanaqah relevant in the modern world, could it function now? That is
an important question. I think that the saints have concluded that it is not
possible now—because of the requirements of the times, the requirements of
jobs, with everyone living such a fast pace of life. This is how Sufism deals
with the modern age. The thing which is emphasized is not to give up your
spiritual exercises, even as you remain fully engrossed in the day-to-day work-
ings of the modern world. That’s the message for every murid, whether he is
in business, an engineer, or an army officer. In previous times people had to
do a lot of spiritual work (mujahada) to get a little [spiritual growth]. Today,
even staying away from watching television is a form of mujahada. (August 26,
2001, Lahore)
This quote typifies the constant refrain among contemporary disciples that
changing times demand a new approach to Sufi practice. Embracing a form
of ijtihad—independent reasoning—today’s Chishti Sabiri order has devel-
oped a range of practical strategies to negotiate change and accommodate
Sufism to the ground-level contingencies of everyday life in the twenty-first
century. In the succinct words of the same disciple, “Our silsila represents
compatibility with modern life” (August 26, 2001, Lahore).
This chapter examines how contemporary Chishti Sabiri identity is experi-
enced and expressed through the discipline of ritual practice. Here I focus on
ethnographic contexts over doctrinal texts. My analysis is concerned less with
theological and polemical debates than with documenting how today’s
Chishti Sabiri disciples actually experience and explain the ritual techniques
that cement their Sufi identity. Drawing on extensive interviews, I highlight
the stories that murids tell themselves and each other about the methods and
meanings of the Sufi spiritual journey. With attention to both private and
public realms, I also chart some of the strategies that disciples employ to inte-
grate suluk into their complicated lives. In short, this chapter traces both the
continuities and changes in postcolonial Sufi praxis. To do so, I focus on the
three ritual complexes at the very heart of Chishti Sabiri identity: dreams and
dream interpretation, the daily rituals of remembrance, and the annual cycle
of pilgrimage networks and musical assemblies at Sufi shrines.
Dreams and Dream Interpretation

Sufi ritual practice takes place at diverse times and in myriad locations. It even
extends into the dream world of sleep. For Muslims both past and present,
dreams are much more than nocturnal hallucinations. As a medium for both
revelation and inspiration, they impart vital ontological, epistemological, and
spiritual truths. In the words of the famous fourteenth-century historian Ibn
Khaldun (d. 1406), “God, therefore, created man in such a way that the veil
of the senses could be lifted through sleep, which is a natural function of
man. When that veil is lifted, the soul is ready to learn the things it desires to
know in the world of Truth. At times, it catches glimpses of what it seeks.”6
Sufi dream theory draws on a rich premodern heritage. Even so, its logic
and practice diverges sharply from the classical science of Islamic dream inter-
pretation (ta'bir).7 Whereas ta'bir aims to translate the imagery of dreams in
order to forecast the future, Sufis cultivate dreams as spiritual tools and catalysts
for spiritual growth. As flashes of ultimate reality (bushra), dreams offer a lit-
mus test for a Sufi’s spiritual potential by measuring “the dreamer’s gradual
ascent within his inner self and, correspondingly, within the macrocosm.”8 The
hagiographies of Sufi masters abound with stories of the dreams and visions of
saints, the Prophet Muhammad, or even, on rare occasion, God. In the case of
select spiritual luminaries, these accounts reach the level of the sublime. There
is perhaps no better example of this than the Persian Sufi master Ruzbihan
Baqli (d. 1209) who preserved his extraordinarily visionary experiences in a
unique spiritual diary titled The Unveiling of Secrets (Kashf al-asrar).9
Dreams and dream interpretation play an essential role in the daily practice
of contemporary Chishti Sabiri pedagogy. In a personal letter addressed to a
female disciple, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani invokes the traditional
paradigm and taxonomy of Islamic dream theory. At the same time, he goes
further to distinguish it from its Western, scientific counterpart:
The psychologists know only one kind of dream, those which result from ideas
or desires in the sub-conscious mind. But actually there are other kinds.
Broadly speaking, the dreams are of two categories according to spiritualism:
rahmani and shaitani. Rahmani dreams are from God and shaitani dreams are
from Satan. The way to distinguish the first from the second is that the former
are not against Islam, while the latter are against shari'a. Sometimes the shaitan
speak in terms of shari'a and then gradually try to mislead us.10
In Chishti Sabiri practice, dreams mirror the interior states and stations of
suluk itself. Following a typology outlined by anthropologist Katherine
Ewing, we can distinguish between three distinct categories of Sufi dreams:
“dreams of initiation,” “spontaneous dreams,” and “induced dreams.”11
The spiritual connection between a Sufi master and disciple is often first
revealed in a dream. “The relationship between shaykh and disciple has not so
much to be established as to be recognized and cultivated,” notes Valerie
Hoffman, “and a major way in which such relationships are recognized is
through dream-visions.”12 The theoretical foundation for dreams of initia-
tion lies in the widespread belief that shaykhs and their disciples are bound
together in a primordial relationship. This idea echoes the Qur'anic narrative
of the Primordial Covenant (7: 172), the event that assures that knowledge
of God is inscribed into the very souls of human beings. In the words of
Shahidullah Faridi, “The truth is that this matter is pre-ordained, just as it is
pre-ordained that a child will be born into a certain family. You do not choose
who should be your mother and father, it is already decreed by Allah . . . The
choice of a spiritual guide (shaykh) is a similar case. It is already decreed from
eternity from who you will receive your portion.”13
Sufi dream theory marks initiation dreams as the interface between a pas-
sive dreamer and an active human agent of the Divine will, the shaykh. It is
the Sufi master who takes the initiative in this relationship, responding to the
dreamer’s innermost desires by appearing to him/her in the world of sleep.
Not surprisingly, the experience of an initiatory dream makes an immediate
and lasting impact on the dreamer’s self-identity, often with enduring conse-
quences for his/her spiritual life and social relationships. In interviews, a
number of Chishti Sabiri disciples narrated such dreams to me. One of the
most intriguing accounts came from a senior Malaysian murid of Chinese
ethnicity. This man’s original conversion to Islam was inspired by a vivid ini-
tiatory dream. It is an event that he still recalls with great emotion:
I was brought up in a Taoist family. We prayed to every deity that you could
imagine. As I grew up I also followed a Hindu priest. Then I met my wife. She
was a Christian, a very staunch Christian, and I nearly followed her into
Christianity. But somehow or other I did not. Allah is very kind. I have a lot of
Malay Muslim friends who talked with me, and guided me along. I believed in
the concept of one God, even when I was young. I did some comparative
studies and thought a lot about it.
Before I embraced Islam, I had a dream. I dreamt of Nabi Issa [Prophet
Jesus], peace be upon him. He was wearing white robes, and floating in the sky.
Many people were standing on the ground. I was standing there too. Then he
called out, “Anyone who wants to be saved, kneel down.” So I knelt down.
After I had this dream, I spoke to many people. The Christians said, “You are a
Christian!” When I spoke to Muslims they said, “Thank God! He is also a
Prophet of Islam. This is a very clear indication that you should embrace
Islam.” So I embraced Islam, together with my wife. (October 1, 2001, Kuala
Lumpur)
This narrative offers a striking example of the transformative power of

dreams. Here a vision of Jesus precipitates a change of faith, the culmination
of a long search for spiritual guidance that traversed a pluralist cultural and
spiritual landscape. In Chishti Sabiri practice, dreams change lives.
Ewing’s research on popular Sufism in Pakistan suggests that Sufi initiatory
dreams are often preceded by a profound sense of longing (shauq) on the part
of the spiritual aspirant. This desire typically culminates in a dream in which
the adept is introduced to his or her shaykh, forging a bond that is subse-
quently formalized during a face-to-face meeting in the waking world.14
Among contemporary Chishti Sabiri murids too this seems to be a remarkably
common experience. A senior Pakistani disciple recounts a dream of Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi that led to a face-to-face encounter with the shaykh:
Somebody gave me a copy of Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq [the spiritual discourses of

Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah]. One day when I was reading it, I fell asleep.
I dreamt that I was standing near a pond in a beautiful garden, and there was a
very holy person there. He was very good-looking. He was the true copy of a
photograph [of the shaykh] I had seen. I thought, “He is Hazrat Shahidullah.”
I dreamt that I was meeting him. [After awaking] my younger brother told me,
“Today Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab came here and gave you some books.” I said,
“Where is he staying?” [He then proceeds to meet the shaykh] He was standing
in the very same spot that I had dreamt about. I quietly walked to him and said,
“Sir, are you Hazrat Shahidullah?” “Yes,” he replied. I introduced myself. That
evening everyone became his murid, my wife, my daughter, and my sons.
(March 24, 2001, Islamabad)
This single dream had immediate and lasting consequences for this disciple
and his extended family, all of whom remain prominent members in the order
to this day.
Such miraculous stories are not uncommon among Sufi disciples. Chishti
Sabiris understand initiatory dreams as a bridge between desire and disciple-
ship. Unanticipated and unpredictable, they are a place where all things
are possible. For a male Malaysian disciple, an unfulfilled desire for bay'at
with Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani resulted in a surprising Uwaysi-style
initiation at the hands of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi:

In the first letter that I wrote to my shaykh, before I became a murid, I wrote
about my dreams. I wrote down about thirty dreams, I wrote everything. He
[Wahid Bakhsh] replied, “You have so many dreams. I will just touch on some
of the important ones.” And then he interpreted some of those dreams. I wrote
to him again and said, “I want to be your murid.” That night I dreamt of
Hazrat Shah Shahidullah Faridi, may God have mercy upon him. He was sitting
at a round table along with three more persons. I walked up to him at the table
and he just turned around and held my hand. He shook my hand. I took bay'at
with him in the dream. I had never met him, but in the dream it was him, a
British man. Maybe I dreamt of him because Hazrat Sahab was a convert, and
I am also a convert. So that’s the reason he appeared, to accept the bay'at.
According to the shaykhs, it is the same thing [taking initiation in dreams or in
person]. (September 30, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
This account is remarkable for its fluid symmetry. This disciple is first drawn
into Wahid Bakhsh’s orbit by the shaykh’s reputation as an interpreter of
dreams. From an informal exchange of letters, to an enigmatic vision of dis-
cipleship with Shahidullah Faridi, to a formal relationship with Wahid
Bakhsh—this story blurs the boundaries between the lived in world of every-
day life and the sacralized, liminal space of the dream. For Chishti Sabiris
both realms of experience are interconnected and equally real.
Given their impact, dreams of initiation hold an especially prominent place
in the personal history of many Chishti Sabiri murids. Disciples view such
visionary experiences as an invaluable source of guidance and inspiration.
Long afterward, they point to the dates and details of initiatory dreams as life-
altering experiences—hinge moments that radically transform their perception
of reality as well as their own sense of identity. As Ewing notes, “The dream
thus becomes a pivot in terms of which the dreamer reorients his life. The
experience of finding one’s pir, validated by a dream, becomes encapsulated in
a ‘story,’ a relatively fixed narrative that, in turn, may be used in the organiza-
tion of a self-representation, to the extent of constituting a new social
identity.”15 When dream narratives are communicated to other disciples, they
also become part of the Chishti Sabiri silsila’s collective memory. In this sense,
Sufi dreams are both personally transforming and collectively edifying.
In Sufi theory, a “spontaneous dream” serves as an effect, sign, or symp-
tom of the relationship between an individual’s spirit (ruh) and soul (nafs).
In the formative stages of the Sufi path, the adept’s ruh is often described as
clouded and opaque, making the reflection of the spiritual realm a virtual
impossibility. As the disciple continues to “clean away” impurities through
ritual discipline, however, dreams increasingly come into focus. In this sense,
spontaneous dreams reflect the Sufi subject’s inner spiritual state.
Muhammad Zauqi Shah explains the significance of visionary experiences in
Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq:
Here [in this world] every person receives divine disclosures according to their
own capacity. As [the Persian couplet by Amir Khusrau], “What wondrous
place I found myself in last night” [che manzil bud shab jay keh man budam]
illustrates, there is a new assembly [mahfil] at every spiritual station [maqam].
There is only one truth, but because people’s capacities differ there are
differences in divine disclosures as well. In the same way, a single truth is
revealed in a dream [khwab], but it is manifested to different people in different
languages and diverse ways. Hazrat 'Umar, may God be pleased with him, said:
“Dreams are the language of God.” For this reason, to relate a dream falsely is
to slander God.16
Spontaneous dreams are therefore both a mark of spiritual attainment and

a measure of spiritual aptitude. Yet as Zauqi Shah suggests, the real mean-
ing of dreams is often not self-evident. For this reason, dreams must be
interpreted.
In her research among Sufi groups in contemporary Egypt, Valerie
Hoffman notes that visionary experiences sometimes substitute altogether
for ordinary personal contact with a shaykh. As a result, Hoffman argues,
dreams and visions provide an especially important outlet for women and
others who would otherwise have little opportunity for direct social interac-
tion with a spiritual mentor.17 This is demonstrably not the case among
Chishti Sabiri practitioners, however. Chishti Sabiri adab dictates that disci-
ples must narrate their dreams directly to their spiritual mentor. This imper-
ative is itself nothing new. In Bihishti Zewar, for example, the revivalist shaykh
Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi (1863–1943) admonishes his readers to avoid publicly
recounting their spiritual experiences: “Do not tell anyone other than your
master if, through the blessed power of reciting the name of God [zikr], you
attain a good spiritual state in your heart, witness good dreams, or experience
a voice or light in a waking state.”18 This same advice is echoed by contem-
porary Chishti Sabiris. In the words of a male Pakistani murid, “Hazrat
Wahid Bakhsh once told me, ‘These dreams and this guidance given to you
is, in fact, guidance from Almighty Allah. It’s just like if a close friend of yours
tells you a close secret and then you go and disclose it to others. That friend
of yours, he wouldn’t like it and it will take you quite awhile to get his confi-
dence back.’ If you tell these secrets then, sorry, no more secrets for you”
(November 7, 2000, Lahore). Chishti Sabiris view dreams as a form of
communication with God, a personalized message that is decidedly not for
public consumption.
In his vital role as dream interpreter, the Chishti Sabiri shaykh listens as
the devotee narrates his/her own dream experiences in detail. Through a
careful analysis of the content of these nocturnal visions, the master gains
deep insights into the disciple’s progress along the path. While the content
of dreams is individualized—reflecting differences in background and per-
sonal experience—there are certain common tropes. As with the traditional
Islamic science of ta'bir, the language and imagery of Sufi dreams provide
vital clues for deciphering its underlying meaning. As Wahid Bakhsh
elucidates in a personal letter written to a female Pakistani murid, the
signs and symbols of a spontaneous dream correspond to the individual’s
psychological and spiritual states:
Sometimes apparently good dreams are really bad, and the bad ones are good.
For instance, being drenched in water, wading or struggling in water, even
being drowned in water is always good. It means purification. If someone sees
himself naked in a dream it is good. It means veils will be lifted and we will
come across reality. Being kissed or embraced in the dream is good; it means
getting spiritual or material benefits. Being garlanded in a dream is not good. It
may mean death. Seeing fire is bad. Seeing wild animals in dreams is good
because the wild animals are the nafs [the lower, concupiscent self]. It is good
to see them because Allah has given him enough purification to be able to see
the evils of his own nafs. Being married is sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Marriage for a spiritual man is union with God. Seeing teeth falling out is bad—
it means troubles. Being bit by a dog means wealth is to come, especially if it is
a mad dog. Seeing filth or being covered with filth means wealth. Seeing one-
self dead is good for the spiritual aspirant. It means he is to reach the status of
annihilation in God (fana fi Allah). Seeing yourself ill in dreams may mean that
you will receive more purification. Praying in a dream means you will perform
Hajj. Seeing holy men or holy places in a dream is good. It means purification.
Seeing the Holy Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation, is a great
blessing. It is said in a hadith that he who sees the Prophet, God bless him and
grant him salvation, in a dream, sees him in reality as in life. So please do not
get worried over apparently bad dreams. You should refer your dreams to me
for interpretation.19
This long list of dream imagery and their corresponding meanings is rem-
iniscent of the logic and style of medieval Islamic dream manuals. It is impor-
tant to notice, however, that Wahid Bakhsh’s typologies have predominantly
spiritual ramifications. For the shaykh, a dream’s signs and symbols reflect the
inner, psychological states of the dreamer. As such, they reveal a disciple’s
piety and spiritual potential. Wahid Bakhsh also emphasizes that spontaneous
dreams of the Prophet Muhammad are particularly auspicious. The famous
hadith that he invokes authenticates a visionary experience of the Prophet
prima facie: “Whoever has seen me has seen me truly, and Satan cannot take
my form.”20 This entire passage establishes Wahid Bakhsh’s authority as a
spiritual guide and an expert interpreter of dreams, and the shaykh ends his
letter with an offer of further guidance.
During the course of my interviews, several Chishti Sabiri murids
described their own visions of the Prophet Muhammad. They did so with a
particular awe and reverence. The content of these narratives varied widely.
Disciples described visions of the Prophet appearing in an array of settings
and dressed in a variety of clothes, most often with a black beard. An account
by a female Pakistani disciple is typical: “When I saw him in a dream, he
was dressed like a Pathan with a turban and a shalwar kamiz. I asked him,
‘Are you the Prophet, peace be upon him?’ He just smiled. When you see
him, you just know it is him. Another time I saw him in a vision. He was
standing outside a tent, wearing black, a black turban, and black clothes. He
was handsome, and had this radiant smile on his face” (March 22, 2001,
Islamabad). Regardless of the details of context or content, murids empha-
size that the Prophet’s appearance sanctifies a dream. Significantly, many
disciples also interpret these experiences as an affirmation of the guidance and
protection offered by the extended silsila. In the words of a female Malaysian
disciple of Wahid Bakhsh,
The more I interacted with him [Wahid Bakhsh], the more dreams came. In
one dream, I was in a place that was full of shaitan [demons] and jinn [spirits].
I did not know which house to go into for protection. When the time for
evening prayers came, suddenly the footsteps of Rasul, God bless him and
grant him salvation, appeared. They just lit up. I just had to step on them, put
my feet on these steps illuminated on the street in the night. I did not see the
Prophet, only his footsteps. I followed them and I was safe from all the shaitan
and jinn. They could not touch me. The footsteps we follow are correct.
(October 3, 2001, Kuala Lumpur)
A vision of the Prophet transformed this woman’s spiritual life, confirming that
she was on an established spiritual path sanctioned by both shari'a and sunna.
While visions of the Prophet are cherished, they are also exceedingly rare.
Chishti Sabiris assert that guidance in spontaneous dreams more often comes
directly from one’s own shaykh or, by extension, the mashai'kh of the Chishti
order. Especially in times of doubt or need, lucid dreams of Sufi masters—
both past and present—provide clarity and comfort. In the words of a female
Pakistani murid, “Sometimes in dreams, the shaitan can divert you. But they
cannot take the form of a shaykh. This is where bay'at helps you, because the
shaykh is in control. Most of the spiritual dreams we have are in the form of
the shaykh. If we need guidance or help, it comes [in a dream] in the form
of your shaykh” (June 17, 2001, Lahore). Significantly, spontaneous dreams
of the spiritual master continue even after the shaykh’s death. Murids high-
light the unbroken continuity of dreams as further proof that a Sufi master’s
power and blessing (baraka) transcend the limits of space and time. In the
words of a female disciple of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi, “I have a powerful
connection with him, in my dreams, all the time. This has helped me
throughout my life. The guidance towards Allah I felt all along, though I had
not physically been with him [Shahidullah Faridi]. I don’t think you need to
see your shaykh. When you have the shaykh in your heart, he is always there
for you” (June 17, 2001, Lahore). As this quote suggests, Chishti Sabiri dis-
ciples view spontaneous dreams as evidence of the enduring connection with
the Sufi master. The insights transmitted in the threshold space of dreams
serve as signposts on a disciple’s journey toward God. Along this pathway,
the shaykh fulfills multiple roles, serving as a moral exemplar, a spiritual guide,
and an interpreter of dreams.
Chishti Sabiri disciples also actively cultivate dreams. These “induced
dreams” are most often used to resolve worldly problems. One such tech-
nique known as istikhara involves the recitation of a litany of special prayers
in prescribed locations––often in a mosque or the vicinity of a saint’s
shrine––with the expectation of an answering dream. This too is an ancient

practice.21 Like initiatory dreams, induced dreams are specifically aimed at
the dreamer. And once again, their meaning and import is ultimately accessi-
ble to the teaching shaykh who interprets them. In Malfuzat-i shaykh, Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi details the correct performance of this ritual: “After the
evening prayer, one should declare the intention [niyyat] to perform
istikhara while keeping the desired goal in mind. Recite Durud Sharif [a
benediction for the Prophet and his descendants] before and after, and recite
Du'a-i Qunut [‘supplication said standing’] seven times. Then go to sleep. If
you are unable to fall asleep, then continue reciting Du'a-i Qunut until sleep
comes. If God Most High wills, you will receive an answer in a dream
[khwab].”22
Chishti Sabiri murids typically perform istikhara on Thursday or Sunday
evenings. I was told that this technique is particularly useful for guidance
and clarity regarding such important matters as marriage, education, finan-
cial matters, and employment. A senior Pakistani disciple, for instance,
turned to istikhara to help him resolve a vexing career decision. Faced with
a job offer that promised higher pay but more responsibilities, he was deeply
concerned that it might also have a deleterious impact on his daily spiritual
devotions. In his words, “This might work out, but from a spiritual point of
view nothing should be disturbed. Of course, I will do istikhara and if it is
negative I will not make the change. Decisions made with the rational mind
alone, even when they are sincere, can be destructive. It [istikhara] is like
consulting God. You offer prayers and supplication [du'a] and go to sleep,
hoping for a dream” (April 25, 2001, Lahore). By inducing dreams, Chishti
Sabiri murids attempt to proactively resolve the ambiguities and indecisions
of their daily lives.
Regardless of their form, Sufi dreams serve a dual function: they inspire
the adept and simultaneously provide the shaykh with a barometer to assess
the disciple’s progress. After interpreting a dream, the spiritual master assigns
a regimen of spiritual exercises in an attempt to “lead the disciple to new spir-
itual growth and to point out and thus bring under control the areas in which
the disciple’s soul (nafs) is dominant and needs to be exposed.”23 At a certain
point in a murid’s spiritual development, however, dreams threaten to
become a distraction. Intriguingly, disciples note that while visionary experi-
ences are prevalent in the early stages of suluk they often decrease in
frequency and intensity over time. A senior Pakistani murid argues that this
too has a purpose: “The unveilings [kashf ], dreams, and visions are some-
times veiled. Why? So they [Sufi adepts] will not be distracted by them. These
things will only slow them down. When you travel by foot, if you stop along
the way to look at the flowers and other things you might forget your goal,
or you will reach your destination very late. But if your eyes are closed, you
just keep on running. You cannot see whatever is in the way. If you run fast,
you will reach your destination quickly” (May 2, 2001, Bahawalpur). Amid
the complexity and ambiguity of modern life, Chishti Sabiris view dreams as
a window to the eternal and unchanging realm of divinity. Dreams illuminate
the way. Even so, the spiritual seeker must still traverse the long and winding
Sufi path in the light of day—awake and alert, in full consciousness and with
clear intention.
The Daily Rituals of Remembrance

As we have seen, a Chishti Sabiri disciple’s connection with the teaching
shaykh is cemented with bay'at, a bond that ensures blessings, protection, and
guidance. And by joining the moral community of the silsila a novice murid
gains immediate access to the order’s teaching networks and support system
as well. Entry into this web of relationships is no guarantee of wisdom, how-
ever. In fact, the inner journey from shari'a to tariqa to haqiqa demands a
great deal more from the Sufi adept. For spiritual advancement, each murid
must voluntarily accept the discipline and rigors of suluk. The decision to take
up the practice of mujahada (spiritual “striving”) is not taken lightly, for
while the potential rewards are significant so too are the requisite sacrifices.
Disciples recognize that ritual practice teaches humility, patience, and thank-
fulness. At the same time, they also emphasize that the Sufi path is a serious
commitment made possible only by the seeker’s deep desire for knowledge
and an abiding love for God. In the words of a senior Pakistani murid,
Fasting, abstention, spiritual exercises, and even controlling the speech—all this
depends on how quickly you want to gain the results. It depends entirely upon
you. If you wish to do it, you will be encouraged to do it by the shaykh. But the
times are such that there are very few people who want to do it, or have the
time and strength to do it. Allah, in his infinite mercy, has made things easier
for us. He says, “If you take one step, I’ll take two steps. If you start walking,
I’ll come running to you.” Our shaykhs say that the fastest way to get there is to
follow two things: sincerity (ikhlas) in your worship ('ibadat) and sincerity
(khulus) in dealing with your fellow human beings. Sincerity is everything.
Discipline, determination, and absolute sincerity are the essential prerequi-

sites for spiritual growth—and it is only a select few who are prepared for the
long and arduous journey.
Today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples assert the fundamental continuity of Sufi
doctrine and practice, even as they find ways to accommodate change in their
spiritual lives. Given the weighty demands of contemporary life, murids
assert, progress along the path increasingly rests on the individual’s attention
to his/her own spiritual homework. In daily practice, Chisthi Sabiris perform
the majority of their spiritual exercises (awrad) in isolation. Disciples receive
instructions directly from the teaching shaykh and do not typically share
information regarding their own daily routine with others. “Suluk is much
more isolated now,” a senior Pakistani disciple explained. “I don’t know what
my pir bhai [‘brother of the Sufi master,’ a fellow murid] is doing, and he
doesn’t know what I am doing. We don’t ask each other, ‘Do you do zikr
5,000 times, 7,000 times, or 10,000 times a day?’ In fact, you are discouraged
from discussing these things. But the shaykh knows what every murid
is doing. He tells you exactly what practices to follow. It’s all individual
instruction” (August 26, 2001, Lahore).
Significantly, disciples mark this increased emphasis on individual practice
in private spaces as a significant break from Chishti Sabiri tradition, a necessary
concession to the demands of twenty-first-century life. This increasing focus
on individualization presupposes an unwavering self-discipline. The Sufi
adept must remain diligent and determined to maintain the daily regimen of
spiritual devotions, performing the prescribed rituals in spare moments.
Disciples suggest that the immense challenge of integrating suluk into mod-
ern life has also prompted Chishti Sabiri shaykhs to close ranks, restricting the
numbers of disciples. Speculating on the meaning of these changes, a young
Pakistani male murid told me,
I think some methods have been modernized by the shaykhs. Whenever the
murid has free time, he has to work, focusing on acts of worship ['ibadat] and
spiritual striving [mujahada]. Now you only have to work part time instead of
the whole day. Maybe that is why the shaykhs do not like to expand [the silsila]
too much now, because of the low quality of disciples! They are very selective,
and once you’re in you are supposed to keep in very close touch with them.
I think that is how they balance things. Early on, disciples could come to the
khanaqah and stay there, so they would stay in close touch in any case. They
were protected from all kinds of evil. So maybe that is the reason why the
shaykhs have smaller circles now. (May 23, 2001, Karachi)
This is an intriguing statement that echoes a central theme I often heard

expressed: the Chishti Sabiri order continues to respond to the changes and
challenges of the modern age with pragmatism and adaptability.
Today’s Chishti Sabiris talk frankly about the never ending struggle to bal-
ance din (religion) and dunya (worldly life). To say the least, the Sufi path
demands a remarkable commitment of time and energy. Murids are encour-
aged to remain fully engaged with the world—attentive to both their families
and their jobs—even as they increase the duration and intensity of their Sufi
practices. This juggling act, however, often requires difficult choices in a dis-
ciple’s personal and professional life. “A serious person on the Sufi path is
recommended to do spiritual work [mujahada] four to five hours a day, in
addition to their job and daily routine—two to three hours in the morning
after morning prayers and one to two hours after evening prayers,” a senior
Pakistani murid told me. “It is all a matter of your intention [niyyat]. It all
comes down to your seriousness. A student preparing for A-levels [university
exams] studies this much. But it affects your ability to socialize. You are cut
off from outsiders, even family” (October 30, 2000, Lahore).
Chishti Sabiris negotiate the demands of din and dunya through a careful
attention to time management. Indeed, murids are hyperaware of the clock.
It marks the passage of the workday, punctuated by the daily prayers that
occur five times a day. In between, disciples must find a time and place for
their Sufi devotions. Maintaining this rigorous schedule is no easy task. As a
senior Pakistani murid attests, it is a constant struggle to manage these

responsibilities:
Most of us who work try to get things done [spiritual exercises] before we go
off to the office. That is the main block of time you have, a three-hour block in
the morning. And in addition to that, one or two hours in the evening, espe-
cially between the afternoon and night prayers. That really is the time [to per-
form mujahada]. If you miss out, it is very difficult to catch up. So those who
are serious cannot even go for morning or evening walks. Either you walk or
you sit [in prayer and meditation].
The morning spiritual exercises are very important. Many people sit until
ishraq [a supererogatory prayer after sunrise]. In winter especially, ishraq is very
close to office time. In the summer you may get some more time. But then in
summers the nights are short, so you depart for the office about half an hour
after ishraq. You always have to be fresh enough for the office work. This is the
struggle that we face. Even if your office staff complains about your work, you
still cannot neglect your prayers. No excuses can be put on religion’s shoulders.
You cannot avoid working because you are engaged in religious activities.
(August 26, 2001, Lahore)
Chishti Sabiris view this struggle to combine din and dunya as the most
important test of a Sufi’s piety and faith. To live in the world, but to not be
consumed by it, to remain ever mindful of God in the midst of the chaos of
mundane existence—this is the true measure of spiritual attainment. And for
today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples, the daily rituals of remembrance—prayer,
zikr, and muraqaba—are the real proving ground for this spiritual jihad.
Meditative Prayer and the Spiritual Body

When a Sufi aspirant receives bay'at and formally joins the Chishti Sabiri
order, she/he receives a copy of the silsila’s official handbook. Compiled by
Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah, this slim text is entitled, Shajara tayyaba
ma'a awrad aur waza'if [The Exalted Spiritual Genealogy with Devotional
Exercises and Daily Prayers]. This book is distributed to all disciples and is
not available for public consumption. In essence, it offers a primer for suluk.
As the title suggests, the text contains copies—one of them in verse—of the
silsila’s spiritual family tree (shajara). Beginning with the current teaching
shaykh, this genealogical record traces the order’s lineage of spiritual masters
back to the Prophet Muhammad. The handbook also provides a list of gen-
eral precepts (hidayat-i 'am) that outline the dietary practices, rules of deco-
rum (adab), and supererogatory prayers (nawafil) required of each murid.
The bulk of this text, however, focuses on the heart and soul of Muslim
devotion: prayer.
A typical Sufi prayer manual, the Shajarah tayyaba outlines particular suras
from the Qur'an for murids to recite on specific occasions, along with a host
of prayers of supplication (du'a) and prayers of blessing (durud). These
are divided into subcategories: the requisite daily prayers (waza'if ) and
devotional exercises (awrad-i rozana), recitations for Friday prayers (ma'-

mulat-i jum'a al-mubarak), and annual recitations tied to the Muslim lunar
calendar (ma'mulat-i salana). With its attention to detail, the shajarah con-
firms that prayer is the core of Chishti Sabiri practice, the firm foundation
upon which all other ritual performances rest. For all Muslims, prayer is an
intimate conversation (munajat) between the human being and God. Prayer
teaches humility and expresses gratitude. Chishti Sabiris make every effort to
maintain the schedule of daily devotions, knowing that prayer anchors both
faith and practice. In the words of a young Pakistani murid, “Prayer is only
flexible at certain times, like when you are traveling or if you’re not well. He
[Wahid Bakhsh] used to say that if you cannot do your prayers at the office
then go home and say them. There should not be any excuse. Allah Almighty
would be very happy to see someone at the office taking time out to say his
prayers. That is real devotion. You must sacrifice other things for your
prayers” (November 7, 2000, Lahore).
For the inner core of Chishti Sabiri disciples immersed in suluk, the daily
diet of devotions is supplemented by two distinct forms of meditative prayer
that I explore below: zikr and muraqaba. Each of these rituals is informed by
an underlying theory of psychophysiology that posits a nonmaterial, spiritual
body composed of discrete “subtle centers” (latifa, plural lata'if). The con-
cept of a mystical spiritual body has a long history in Sufi thought and prac-
tice.24 Numerous premodern masters developed sophisticated models of
mystical anatomy to explain the psychosomatic states encountered in Sufi
experience. One of the most extensive and nuanced systems was formulated
by the Kubrawiyya Sufi order in central Asia under the leadership of such
luminaries as Najm ad-Din al-Kubra (d. 1220), 'Ala ad-Dawla as-Simnani (d.
1336), and Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464).25 Spiritual masters in the
Naqshbandi Mujaddidi tradition, including Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) of
Delhi, created equally sophisticated paradigms.26 This complex of ideas was
appropriated into the Chishti Sabiri tradition as well. Hajji Imdad Allah’s
influential ritual manual Ziya' al-qulub, for example, equates seven subtle
substances (lata'if) with seven distinct levels of the human heart. As Kugle
illustrates, Ziya' al-Qulub is “not about metaphysics, but rather about meta-
physiology: that is, how the human body and especially the heart can be
trained to adopt postures and motions that have transcendent ethical effects,
so that the body itself can become a mirror for a just cosmic order.”27
Twentieth-century Chishti Sabiris shaykhs inherited this rich premodern
tradition. With explicit references to both Shah Wali Allah and Hajji Imdad
Allah, their writings theorize a spiritual body that comprises six subtle cen-
ters.28 Each discrete latifa is associated with a specific location in the body
and a corresponding color. The most succinct summation of Chishti Sabiri
mystical physiology is found in Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani’s Islamic Sufism:
In Sufism, corresponding to the six physical senses of cognition, sight, hearing,

touch, taste, and the hidden sixth sense, there are six spiritual senses of
cognition to apprehend higher spiritual realities much beyond the scope of the
physical. These are known as Lata'if-i sitta. “Lata'if” is the plural of “latifa,”
which means “subtle sense,” and “sitta” means six. These are:
1) Latifa-i nafs (sensual) is located [two fingers] under the navel and the color
of its light (nur) is yellow.
2) Latifa-i qalb (Heart) lies in the left chest and the color of its light is red.
3) Latifa-i ruh (Soul) is in the right chest and the color of its light is green.
4) Latifa-i sirr (Secret) is in between latifa-i qalb and latifa-i ruh, and the
color of its light is white.
5) Latifa-i khafi (Hidden) is located in the middle of the forehead, and the
color of its light is blue.
6) Latifa-i akhfa (Hidden-most) is located at the top of the head, and the
color of its light is black.
These spiritual centers were first reported to exist by the Prophet of Islam in a
hadith which is as follows: “There is a piece of flesh in the body called Qalb
(heart), the heart is in the Soul, the Soul is in the Sirr, the Sirr is in the Khafi,
and the Khafi is in the Akhfa which is in the Divine ‘I’ (Ana).”29
These subtle centers within the human body, in turn, are mirrored in the six
levels of Divine descent (tanazzulat-i sitta). Wahid Bakhsh details this cos-
mological model as follows:
1) La Ta'ayyun (the Infinite Being or Pure Essence)

2) Ta'ayyun-i Awwal (the first limitation), also known as Haqiqat-i
Muhammadiyyah [the reality of Muhammad], which has been given the
name of “Logos” in Greek philosophy and “Nous” in Neoplatonism
3) Ta'ayyun-i Thani (the second limitation), known as Haqiqat-al-Insan
(man’s reality)
4) Alam-i-Arwah (the soul world)
5) Alam-i-Mithal (the world of similes) which is a subtle world intervening
between the soul world and the phenomenal world
6) The phenomenal or the physical world in which we are living.30
In this way, the Chishti Sabiri model expressly links the Sufi’s internal
spiritual body (microcosm) with both Prophetic realities and the external
levels of the cosmos (macrocosm).
During the course of my interviews, I found that most Chishti Sabiri
disciples were largely unaware of this nuanced psychophysiology. When asked
about the spiritual body, in fact, most murids admitted ignorance. This is not
entirely surprising, since as a rule Chishti Sabiri shaykhs stress practice over the-
ory. Nonetheless, these concepts do play an important, pragmatic function in
the pir-murid relationship. From the earliest stages of suluk, disciples are
encouraged to remain especially attentive to the colors they see in dreams and
during the practice of zikr and muraqaba. They relate these visual experiences
directly to the shaykh who, in turn, interprets their significance. A Pakistani
male disciple explains, “That is what the daily zikr consists of, trying to illu-
minate these subtle centers [lata'if]. During zikr, muraqaba, and other prac-
tices, some people speak of seeing colors. I recall a number of times when he
[Wahid Bakhsh] questioned me about colors that I had seen, especially in

muraqaba. Usually he would explain these things in private, not in front of
others—just to that particular person, so others were not aware” (August 26,
2001, Lahore). As the Sufi adept progresses along the path, the centers of the
spiritual body are gradually activated, one by one. Much like the visions expe-
rienced in spontaneous dreams, therefore, the lata'if serve as vital heuristic
tools for measuring spiritual attainment. Though invisible to the naked eye,
the murid’s spiritual centers are immediately apparent to the spiritual master.
The illuminated spiritual body is the definitive mark of spiritual perfection.
Zikr : The Remembrance of God

The backbone of Chishti Sabiri ritual practice is zikr: the “remembrance” or
“recollection” of God. Zikr is a ubiquitous term in the Qur'an. Time and
again, human beings are called to remember God and His commandments.
By continuously chanting the names of God, either in solitude or in company,
Sufis seek nothing less than the interiorization of the Qur'anic message.31 As
a meditative practice, zikr aims to replace the insatiable appetites of the con-
cupiscent ego with an abiding awareness of the Divine presence. For the
accomplished seeker, a heightened state of consciousness becomes constant
and all-consuming. Shahidullah Faridi explains how zikr alters perspective:
If anyone carries out zikr constantly, his life no longer remains a meaningless
sequence of events, but becomes a series of incidents in his relationship with his
Divine Master. If he receives something pleasant he considers it a manifestation
of the bounty and mercy of God which He has promised to His servants. If he
is overtaken by something unpleasant, he perceives it as the wages of his sins
which the Supreme Judge has given him in this world; he realizes that it is a test
of his faith and perseverance, and hopes that it will requite for the faults that he
has committed. In this way, his whole life becomes a communion with Allah. It
could even be described as a conversation with Him, for although to speak
directly with the Supreme Being is the privilege of his exceptionally favored ser-
vants, through this type of remembrance every believer can converse with his
Lord. Allah addresses the believer through the medium of events, and the
believer makes his reply by the turning of his heart towards Him in reaction to
the event. By means of this zikr, the relationship with Allah becomes closer and
closer and develops into one of love.32
As Shahidullah illustrates, Chishti Sabiris view zikr as a conversation with

God—an extension and amplification of daily prayer.
Chishti Sabiri teachings posit a symbiotic relationship between the body,
mind, and soul. Each must be tamed and trained in succession. In a lecture
recorded on March 1, 1978, Shahidullah Faridi details both the form and
function of zikr practice:
When we are in zikr, we should remember Allah and try to forget ourselves and
forget the body. That is why when a person sits in zikr he should sit in such a
calm and composed way that he is not bothered by his body . . . That is not
such a difficult thing, but the mind is our great battlefield. To compose and set
the mind at rest is the whole struggle in the spiritual world, but this struggle is
not impossible. Allah has given us the strength to win, but we have to
work . . . In fact you might say that as far as our effort is concerned it is the
most important, because this is what we can do—simply collect our thoughts in
one place, concentrate them, direct them at one point, which is Allah. And then
what Allah does is His will.33
This is the very essence of suluk. Through one-pointed, focused meditation,

the Sufi adept slowly learns to discipline the body and quiet the mind. And
with the silencing of the self there is the possibility of communion with God.
In practice, however, Chishti Sabiri zikr is anything but silent. Concentrating
on the rise and fall of the breath, the practitioner creates a soundscape by
repeating—out loud and with a strong voice—a variety of prescribed litanies.
This distinguishes Chishti Sabiris from their Naqshbandi counterparts who
typically practice a silent, internal form of zikr.34 Although it is not consid-
ered “music” per se, there is a definite rhythm and lyricism to Chishti Sabiri
vocal zikr (zikr-i lisani). As an oral and aural performance, it resembles the
art of Qur'an recitation (tajwid).
Chishti Sabiri murids—men and women, novices and elders alike—are
encouraged to maintain a strict daily schedule of zikr. Disciples regularly per-
form two foundational zikr formulas. The most basic is zikr-i ism-i dhat
(“the remembrance of the name of the Divine essence”). This involves the
recitation of the name of Allah while simultaneously visualizing a physical
strike (zarb) on the heart. Disciples begin by repeating this simple formula-
tion hundreds of times in rapid succession. As their practice deepens, the
number of repetitions increases exponentially. A senior Pakistani murid
explains:
The [daily zikrs] are very specific. The typical one is zikr-i ism-i dhat. You start
with five hundred, and then extend it up to as many as ten or twelve thousand.
It depends on the capacity [of the individual murid]. Usually, the minimum is
reciting one thousand in a sitting. Most people do up to six or seven thousand,
because that takes about half an hour. You continuously repeat “Allah.” The
strike (zarb) of “Allah” is on your heart (qalb) [moves his head in motion]. The
important thing is that it should be done regularly. Unless you do this regularly,
for a year or so, then you do not increase it. It must be done daily. (March 16,
2001, Lahore)35
The other standard formula in Chishti Sabiri practice is zikr-i nafi wa

ithbat (“the remembrance of negation and affirmation”). In this recitation,
the adept continuously repeats the first half of the testimony of faith
(shahada): “there is no god but God” (“la ilaha ‘illa’llah”). This phrase, of
course, encapsulates the fundamental theological doctrine of Islam: absolute,
uncompromising monotheism (tawhid). In Arabic, its alliterative pronuncia-
tion rolls easily off the lips, making it an especially powerful mantra for
meditation. Chishti Sabiri disciples recite the second half of the shahada as
well, affirming the unique status of the Prophet Muhammad as the final
messenger (rasul) of Divine revelation. In the extended zikr practice, the
shahada is woven together with the names of God and other prescribed
formulas to form a single, seamless recitation. The order’s ritual manual
Shajara tayyaba prescribes a daily repertoire that combines these litanies into
a standardized format:
After the evening [maghrib] or night ['isha] prayers, close the eyes. Two fingers
below the left breast is the heart [qalb]. From the heart, draw the sound “la”
[“no”] and pull it towards your right shoulder. From there say “ilaha”
[“God”] and bring it back to the left and onto the heart with a sharp strike
[zarb] of “illa'llah” [“but Allah”]. After a hundred strikes, say: “Muhammad is
the Messenger of God” [Muhammadu rasul Allah]. Do this two hundred
times. Then strike the heart four hundred times with only “illa'llah.” After that
recite “Allahu Allah” six hundred times. The strike of “Allahu” should be two
fingers below the right breast, and “Allah” should strike onto the heart. Repeat
this through the entire rosary [tasbih][one thousand two hundred repetitions].
If time is short, then close the eyes and recite “Allah” with the voice onto the
heart five hundred times. And after the morning prayers, close the eyes and
recite in the mind “Allahu Allah” with both breaths [i.e., “Allahu” while inhal-
ing, “Allah” while exhaling] as many times as possible.36
By repeating these basic formulas over and over again, the Chishti Sabiri dis-
ciple attempts to eradicate all worldly thoughts, tame the ego, and inundate
the mind and heart with the memory of God.
In the advanced stages of suluk, select Chishti Sabiri adepts engage an
alternative form of zikr known as habs-i dam, or the “keeping of the breath.”
This rigorous ascetic practice is known as a particular specialty of past Chishti
Sabiri spiritual masters. It involves complete submersion in water for pro-
longed periods of time, a method that is said to cool the “heat” generated by
intense zikr. This distinct meditation technique—and in particular the con-
cept of spiritual “heat” (tapas)—suggests a possible connection with Hindu
yogic practices. In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Muhammad Zauqi Shah describes
the meaning and method of habs-i dam:
Refinement comes to the spirit [ruh] through the practice of habs-i dam, and
through this refinement the spirit gains strength. Whatever is refined [latif ]
possesses immense strength. Electricity is highly refined so it has a greater
strength than fire, water or steam which are all dense. When the spirit becomes
refined, its ability to comprehend the matters of the higher realm also increases.
This helps [the seeker] attain the presence and attention [tawajjuh] of Allah.
Generally, habs-i dam is performed while submerged in water during the
winter. There is rapid progress while sitting in water. In the Holy Qur'an it is
said that all things exist from water. Human beings too receive nourishment
from water. Habs-i dam begins with the recitation of “Allah” twenty one times
and then gradually increases. As with all the other spiritual exercises [mujaha-
dat], habs-i dam should be done consistently.
During the days of my spiritual training, I used to perform this in a river. At

first the immersion was difficult, but after some time I did not want to come
out of the water. It felt very warm. My shaykh, Mawlana Sahab [Shah Sayyyid
Waris Hasan], may God be pleased with him, sometimes went into a pond after
night prayers and remained under water the entire night. He used to tell the
mu'azzin [the person who announces the call to prayer], “Tell me when it is
time for morning prayers.” During the entire night he would take only two or
three breaths.37
Zauqi Shah’s account of his own experiences and the miraculous story of his
shaykh’s spiritual prowess echo common tropes in Sufi hagiographies.
Clearly, habs-i dam represents the most extreme outer reaches of Chishti
Sabiri ritual discipline. Though certainly not a common practice, it illumi-
nates how far some Sufis are prepared to push themselves in the quest for
spiritual knowledge.
On a more mundane level, the ultimate goal for most Chishti Sabiri
adepts is to make zikr constant and continuous. Beyond the fixed hours of
private devotion, disciples are encouraged to integrate zikr into every
moment of their daily lives via a simple technique known colloquially as pas-
i anfas (“holding the breaths”). This form of silent recitation offers yet
another tool for developing the Sufi’s powers of concentration. “ ‘Ya Hayy’
[‘Oh, Living’] should be recited with the inward breath and ‘Ya Qayyum’
[‘Oh, Eternal’] with the outward breath,” Shahidullah Faridi explains.
“There is another method as well in which ‘Allah’ is recited with the inward
and outward breaths. This is the silent ‘remembrance of the heart’ [zikr-i
qalbi]. The goal is to insure that not a single breath is free of the name of
God.”38 Zikr, Chishti Sabiris say, must be woven into the fabric of the Sufi’s
heart and mind. In the words of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, “The seeker
[salik] should always have his heart inclined towards God Most High.
Without a doubt, he should continue with his worldly affairs, but even so he
must never be neglectful [ghafil] of the remembrance of God [zikr-i
Allah] . . . A salik should always remember God, regardless of what he is
doing. As the famous saying goes, ‘the hand at work, the heart with the
Friend’ [dast ba kar, dil ba yaar].”39 In short, zikr is perfected only when it
fully internalized—when the remembrance of God is as constant and effort-
less as breathing itself.
In keeping with the adab of the master-disciple relationship, zikr is
performed only under the strict supervision of the teaching shaykh. During
my interviews, disciples often commented that dilettantism and individual
experimentation were extremely dangerous and potentially damaging. It is
the shaykh’s sole prerogative to determine a proper course of action for each
of his followers. Regardless of the precise program, disciples agree, the effi-
cacy of zikr depends on persistence and regularity. Chishti Sabiri masters are
especially strict about this. According to a male Pakistani murid, “I remem-
ber I once told Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh, ‘At times when I come home from the
office I am very tired and I cannot do all my zikrs. Can there be concessions
for zikr? Could I do less?’ Now believe me, he allowed exceptions for everything
else—your dress, the way you talk, the way you do things, the way you work.
But not these zikrs. He said, ‘You cannot.’ He used to tell me very firmly,
‘You have to go out of the way to perform these zikrs.’ He did not allow a
single concession regarding this” (November 7, 2000, Lahore).
Today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples typically perform the daily regimen of zikr
practices in isolation, most often in a quiet, secluded space. Many murids
have arranged a private meditation chamber in their homes for just this pur-
pose. On Thursday evenings, however, the routine changes and disciples
gather together for a weekly communal performance known as the halqa-i
zikr (the “circle of remembrance”). Given the silsila’s growing geographic
spread, these gatherings are held in multiple locations. In Karachi, Shaykh
Siraj 'Ali Muhammad—the order’s current teaching shaykh—leads a large
zikr circle in a private home near the tomb complex of Shahidullah Faridi. In
Lahore, a senior male murid hosts a weekly halqa-i zikr in his home. A female
disciple of Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani does the same, leading a separate
session comprised mostly of women. Another female murid used to host a
similar weekly halqa in Islamabad, but this practice has recently been discon-
tinued. In Malaysia, disciples take turns hosting a communal zikr in private
homes in and around Kuala Lumpur. These sessions are also presided over by
a senior disciple of Wahid Bakhsh.
Regardless of location, Chishti Sabiri halqa-i zikr is marked by a pervasive
attention to the dictates of etiquette and decorum.40 Disciples learn the rules
of adab through direct experience and describe them as a vital dimension of
the sacrality and efficacy of the ritual. These zikr share a common structure
as well. On Thursday evenings, murids perform ritual ablutions in their own
homes and then make their way to the venue. They dress in clean clothes—
typically white shalwar kamiz. Men wear a white prayer cap (topi) and women
a thin head covering (dupatta). During the ritual performance, disciples sit
with legs crossed in ordered rows on the floor. The ritual space is gendered,
with women sitting in rows behind the men. The lights are dimmed, and
together disciples perform the maghrib prayers. When the prayer cycle is
completed, the imam (prayer leader) turns from the qibla (prayer niche) to
face the audience, and the zikr immediately begins. The leader begins to
recite a particular zikr, and the audience joins in. This call and response con-
tinues through a series of prescribed litanies. Adab dictates that murids recite
in unison with loud voices, energy, and enthusiasm. Physical movements are
minimized, though some murids sway their heads and move their bodies as
they recite.
Tradition places a strong emphasis on the importance of the zikr’s
aesthetics. As Muhammad Zauqi Shah notes in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq,
“Exquisite zikr [zikr-i nihayat] should be done with a beautiful voice,
together in unison. If I fall silent [while leading the zikr], it is of no conse-
quence. As a rule, you should continue reciting. I will give the indication
when it is time to change [the pattern]. Allah is beautiful and He loves
beauty. For this reason, zikr should always be done in a beautiful manner.
You must understand that this is no ordinary matter.”41 While there is no
fixed form for halqa-i zikr, there is a general pattern that is passed down from
generation to generation. The senior male murid who leads the weekly ses-
sion in Lahore explained the logic of the zikr format:
Hazrat Siraj Sahab once mentioned that Hazrat Shahidullah Sahab told him
that it is not necessary to plan what you should say in zikr. Whatever comes [is
suitable]. I remember that Hazrat Captain Wahid Bakhsh told me that istighfar
[a supplication for forgiveness] in the beginning is important. You must do
that, whether it is “istaghfiru'llah” [“I ask God’s forgiveness”] or “Rabb igh-
fir” [“Lord, forgive”]. And “la ilaha illa'llah” [“There is no god but God”] is
important in the middle. Then you should conclude with salam [salutations for
the Prophet Muhammad]. Either “salla Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam” [“God bless
him and grant him salvation”] or “salawat wa salam 'alaikum, ya rasul Allah”
[“blessings and peace be upon you, oh Messenger of God”]. (March 16, 2001,
Lahore)
During my fieldwork in Pakistan, I frequently attended the weekly halqa-i

zikr in Lahore. While the number and arrangement of recitations varied
slightly from week to week, the zikr performed at a gathering on a Thursday
evening in October 2000 is typical:
1. Rabb ighfir (“Lord, forgive”)

2. Rabbun Allah (“Allah is Lord”)
3. tawakkultu Allah (“surrender to Allah”)
4. Huwa al-Awwal, huwa al-Akhir, huwa al-Zahir, huwa al-Batin [Qur'an
57:3, “He is the First, the Last, the Outward, the Inward”)
5. Ya khair an-Nasirin (“Oh, best of helpers!”)
6. Ya khair al-Warithin (“Oh, best of inheritors!”)
7. Ya khair al-Hafizin (“Oh, best of preservers!”)
8. la ilaha illa'llah (“there is no god but God”)
9. illa'llah (“but God”)
10. Allahu Allah (“He is God”)
11. salla Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam (“God bless him [the Prophet Muhammad]
and grant him salvation”)
This particular repertoire follows the general pattern. The cycle begins by
asking for Divine forgiveness (1), continues with a series of incantations of
the names of God that emphasize tawhid (2–10), and concludes with a bless-
ing for the Prophet Muhammad (11). Despite variations in format, the over-
all aim of the Chishti Sabiri halqa-i zikr remains the same: to expand the Sufi
adept’s awareness of the presence and power of God.
The atmosphere at these weekly ritual gatherings is serious and somber.
Since young children often accompany their parents, however, there is occa-
sionally background noise that threatens to disrupt the zikr’s focused inten-
sity. In a personal letter to a female Malaysian disciple, Wahid Bakhsh notes
that such disturbances actually serve an important role in Sufi training.
Within the sacralized space of the halqa-i zikr, he asserts, there are no
accidents and everything serves a higher purpose. Wahid Bakhsh explains this
dynamic in his own inimitable style:
The virtue of distractions is that the more they break your concentration, the
greater becomes your effort to concentrate. One becomes indifferent to what is
happening. The principle of opposition is at work in the whole of the universe.
Parliaments have opposition parties. The 'ulama have opposing elements. Even
in nature you will find opposition causing good results. The gardener trims the
plants which only enhances their growth. The hair that is cut grows longer,
while that not cut like eyebrows and eyelashes do not grow. Do not worry
about distraction during zikr, whether individual or collective. And do not
chase your children out of the room. Let them stay and pray with you. The
noise they make or the distraction they cause will help your concentration, not
spoil it. When a small baby cries during zikr, do not worry about it, do not
mind it. It has a purpose to serve. It stings you and whips you to be more active
and attentive. Allah Almighty has not created Satan in vain! He is there like a
trick wrestler, to wrestle with us and make us strong. The more hurdles and
obstacles in your way, the greater is your progress.42
The entire halqa-i zikr typically lasts about half an hour. When the
performance concludes, the room falls silent. Disciples quietly rise from their
seats and immediately disperse into the night, returning to their homes.
Before, during, and after the ritual, talking and socializing are purposefully
minimized. I was told that this is absolutely essential if the spiritual blessings
(faiz) gained during zikr are to be retained, internalized, and preserved.
According to a senior disciple, “Halqa-i zikr is not a social event. Unless it is
absolutely necessary, nobody should talk, at least for some time. The best
thing is to stay silent, pray your night prayers, and immediately go to bed.
Whatever you gain in this weekly zikr is so delicate that if you talk, you will
lose it. That is why serving any food or even a cup of tea is strictly forbidden,
because some people then might come just to socialize” (August 26, 2001,
Lahore).
Thus, the halqa-i zikr complements and concentrates the daily practices
that murids carry out in isolation. This weekly ritual is one of the principal
forums for the expression and experience of Chishti Sabiri communal iden-
tity. “Our zikr is particular to our silsila,” a Pakistani disciple assured me. “It
can found in the writings of 'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi [d. 1537] as well as
Ziya' al-qulub [the ritual manual written by Hajji Imdad Allah (d. 1899)], so
it comes to us directly from our Chishti Sabiri shaykhs” (March 16, 2001,
Lahore).43 Like all ritual practices, however, halqa-i zikr is not static—it
changes according to the context of the times. Drawing on his own experi-
ences in the silsila, a Pakistani elder recalled that the logistics of the perform-
ance were modified over the years. In his words,
I have attended the zikr circles of my shaykh, Hazrat Zauqi Shah Sahab, Hazrat
Shahidullah Sahab, and now Hazrat Siraj Sahab. I have seen the differences. To
start with, the length of halqa has shortened. It used to last well over an hour.
Traditionally it has always held on Thursdays, except for the month of Ramadan
when it used to be every day. When Hazrat Mawlana Sahab [Shah Sayyid Waris
Hasan] visited Bombay or Calcutta, he used to have it every day or on alternate
days. Otherwise it was always once a week. Six days of the week the murid is
supposed to toil by himself, individually. The shaykhs also used to hold a stick,
Hazrat Mawlana Sahab and Hazrat Zauqi Sahab too. If you were out of line or
out of rhythm, then “whap”! [laughter] Try doing that today! You see, human
life is an evolutionary process. In that evolutionary process, it is the law of
nature that everything adapts to the need of the day. (September 1, 2001,
Karachi)
In the eyes of this Chishti Sabiri elder, changes in the form of Sufi ritual
practice are natural, unavoidable, and unsurprising. The underlying purpose
of suluk, however, remains unchanged. This is an important (and widely
shared) insight. For today’s Chishti Sabiris the persistence of ritual practice
provides a vital sense of continuity. For disciples of all ages, the daily practice
of zikr offers an essential outlet for both communication and community. Its
performance also cements a powerful link between twenty-first-century
murids and their spiritual predecessors. Though the Sufi journey toward God
is long and arduous, disciples find great comfort in the knowledge that the
path is well marked.
Muraqaba: Spiritual Contemplation at

Pakistani Sufi Shrines
Another key Chishti Sabiri meditative practice is contemplation (muraqaba).
Whereas zikr is oral and aural, muraqaba is primarily a visual experience. As
with dreams, disciples view muraqaba as a vehicle for states of consciousness
beyond the limits of the rational, discursive mind and the descriptive power
of language. In the enigmatic words of Muhammad Zauqi Shah, “Muraqaba
is the guardian of what comes from the heart [dil]. It preserves the desire that
is imagined [tasawwur] in the heart. It turns the slave’s own knowledge
which disregards the blessings of sacred knowledge in the direction of God
Most High.”44
In Chishti Sabiri suluk, contemplation is typically reserved for more
advanced disciples. Murids are usually introduced to the practice only after
they have established a regular, disciplined routine of daily prayer and zikr.
“Muraqaba involves intense concentration and is superior to zikr,” a senior
Pakistani disciple explained. “The unveiling of vision happens in muraqaba,
but it usually comes only after some time [i.e., later in spiritual training]”
(March 16, 2001, Lahore). As Buehler illustrates, the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi
tradition developed a complex, formalized routine of twenty-six distinct con-
templations.45 The contemporary Chishti Sabiri system is, by comparison, far
less nuanced and systematized. In their writings and oral teachings, Chishti
Sabiri shaykhs detail three general categories: muraqaba-i shaykh (“contem-
plation of the spiritual guide”), muraqaba-i rasul (“contemplation of the
messenger,” the Prophet Muhammad), and muraqaba-i dhat (“contemplation
of the Divine essence”).
In essence, muraqaba is a ritualized form of focused, one-pointed

meditation. While following the rise and fall of the breath, the Sufi practi-
tioner imagines herself/himself in the physical presence of the teaching
shaykh, the Prophet Muhammad, or Allah. Shahidullah Faridi describes the
basic practice as follows: “After 'asr [afternoon prayer] one should try to
concentrate one’s full heart and soul towards Allah in the form of muraqaba
(meditation). It means concentrating the mind. Actually, muraqaba means
watching over the mind so that no foreign thoughts come into it. If they
do, then brush them aside. So muraqaba from a positive point of view
means that one should watch that the mind is at all times directed towards
the thought of Allah.”46 Predictably, the specific routine of contemplations
is prescribed by the teaching shaykh in accordance with the capacities and
spiritual status of individual disciples.
As with all Sufi rituals, Chishti Sabiris stress that muraqaba must be
performed regularly if it is to be effective. At times this presents a formidable
challenge, especially when tangible benefits are not readily apparent. “Most
people do not feel anything, they just sit there,” a Pakistani disciple told me.
“Many murids often question the shaykh about this. They say, ‘I do
muraqaba, but I don’t see anything.’ The shaykh will say, ‘That is not your
business. You just keep doing it. The rest is our business.’ You do not give up
the practice because you can’t see anything” (March 16, 2001, Lahore). By
contrast, other disciples experience immediate results. A male Malaysian
murid, for example, describes his own experiences in contemplation as a fluid
extension of prayer:
As Muslims we have to pray five times a day. I think that because we pray and
do the fast I have found that going into meditation is not that difficult. You are
in contact with Allah most of the time, five times a day. So our concentration is
there. We always try to refer back to Him. We say “thank God” [al-hamdu
lillah], even when we sneeze. You are always referring back to Him. The
contact is there, in everything we do, even if we’re not doing something “reli-
gious.” So perhaps because of that I find muraqaba quite easy. (October 6,
2001, Kuala Lumpur)
An aptitude for intense concentration appears to be largely a matter of

personality—a mixture of a disciple’s natural abilities and disciplined
determination.
For the committed murid, the sustained practice of muraqaba serves as a
gateway to states of ecstasy and insight (hal). Chishti Sabiri adab, however,
dictates that the effects of spiritual intoxication (sukr) must always be kept in
check. Wahid Bakhsh emphasizes the importance of maintaining sobriety
(sahw) in a personal letter to a female disciple, describing it as the very
essence of Prophetic sunna: “We do not make faqirs or majzubs [a spiritually
intoxicated Sufi]. We plan to make full-fledged doctors of spiritual sci-
ence . . . Sobriety in the middle of storms of intoxication is our system or
method which is the same as that of the Holy Prophet, God bless him and
grant him salvation. Sobriety in the midst of intoxication is the goal of Islam
and this is the real specialty of our silsila . . . The kind of zikrs and muraqabas
which we prescribe tend to insure intoxication with sobriety, and not intoxi-
cation alone. This is the Holy Prophet’s method.”47 Chishti Sabiris insist that
the effects of muraqaba are especially intense. For this reason, the capacity to
maintain focus, discipline, and self-control in the face of spiritual ecstasy is yet
another sign of spiritual maturity.
In describing their own experiences, Chishti Sabiri disciples place particu-
lar emphasis on the efficacy of muraqaba-i shaykh. The importance of the
visualization of the spiritual guide once again points to the centrality of the
Sufi master-disciple relationship. Reflecting on a similar practice among the
Naqshbandiyya, Buehler notes that this visual focus on the teaching shaykh
“involves both an emotional tie of love and a specific psychological tie of
modeling.”48 The same can be said for Chishti Sabiri disciples. Intriguingly,
murids extend this technique to include the spiritual masters of the entire
silsila. In addition to their own spiritual guide, for instance, many disciples
perform muraqaba for Hazrat Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din Chishti Ajmeri, Baba
Farid ad-Din, al-Hujwiri, Muhammad Zauqi Shah, and Shah Sayyid Waris
Hasan for fifteen to thirty minutes on a daily basis. During meditation,
murids visualize these spiritual mentors—both living and deceased—in an
effort to become more like them. In effect, muraqaba is an act of the imagi-
nation. Through its practice the genealogical roots and the ethical virtues of
the Chishti Sabiri order are remembered and actualized.
“In muraqaba,” a Malaysian disciple assured me, “you enter a realm of
no time and no space” (October 6, 2001, Kuala Lumpur). In practice,
however, certain places are more conducive to spiritual reflection than oth-
ers. Although Chishti Sabiri disciples typically complete their daily contem-
plations in the private sanctity of their own homes, muraqaba is also
frequently performed at local Sufi shrines. As we have seen, the contempo-
rary silsila places the tomb of Shaykh Baba Farid ad-Din Mas'ud Ganj-i
Shakkar in Pakpattan at the center of Sufi sacred geography in Pakistan.
The growing shrine complexes of Shahidullah Faridi in Karachi and Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani in Allahabad are now marked as Chishti Sabiri domain
as well. Disciples revere the tombs of saints as places of immense spiritual
power. And because they believe that the Friends of God are alive and
accessible in their graves, entry into a saint’s presence requires careful
preparation and an attention to the dictates of etiquette. In Islamic Sufism,
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani outlines the requisite decorum for muraqaba at
Sufi shrines in detail:
The first and foremost duty of the visitor is to have a bath, change clothes, use
perfumes and enter the shrine with love and reverence for the saint, thinking
that he is in the presence of the King of whom he has come to pay homage.
Next he has to recite the Fatiha [the opening chapter of the Qur'an] . . . and
sit down facing the grave with closed eyes, thinking that he is sitting in front of
the shaykh and receiving inspiration from him. To begin with, one must sit, or
stand if there is no room to sit, for about half an hour with full attention
focused on him. The inspiration automatically comes, of course with varying
degrees for each individual, depending on his level and capacity. Sometimes the
recipient remains as if spoon-fed, for he is unable to digest the heavier feasts
meant for grown-up and matured spiritualists. When the capacity of the seeker
grows, the shaykh’s inspiration gathers more intensity and vigor and it appears
that a full shower of boundless grace has been let loose upon him as compared
to the trickling drops he received during the early stages.49
Like zikr, contemplation is understood as an intimate conversation

between the Sufi disciple and the patron saint, alive in his tomb. As a rule,
Chishti Sabiri murids are discouraged from visiting the tombs of Sufi saints
outside the silsila. Though they acknowledge that any saint’s tomb is poten-
tially a conduit for Divine inspiration, Chishti Sabiri attitudes toward sacred
space are remarkably insular. A notable exception is made, however, for the
shrine of Sayyid 'Ali ibn 'Uthman al-Hujwiri (d. 1074) in the old city of
Lahore. In a personal letter to a female Pakistani disciple, Wahid Bakhsh
explains both the rationale for the silsila’s strict boundaries as well as its
concession for al-Hujwiri’s shrine:
Do not go to any mazar which is not in our silsila. The shaykhs of our silsila
are your real doctors and know what medicine is suitable for you. The shaykhs
of other silsilas just give what [spiritual blessings] they like, and do not dis-
criminate what suits you and what does not suit you. This is very important.
There are many mazars of unknown shaykhs in Lahore. Some of them are
qalandars [a roaming sect of antinomian Sufis] and can only give their visitors
what they have—that is, they make them qalandars as well. In our silsila we
avoid this. Although Hazrat Data Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, is
not in the line of our silsila directly, he is great enough to know what you
need. Moreover, he is very much associated with the masha'ikh of our silsila.
He is very kind to us.50
As the saint’s moniker, Data Ganj Bakhsh (“The Lavish Giver”), suggests
al-Hujwiri’s tomb is renowned as a place of intense power—an open and
accessible outlet for spiritual grace.
The contemporary Chishti Sabiri appropriation of al-Hujwiri is not
surprising since the eleventh-century saint has a long association with the
tariqa. According to tradition Mu'in ad-Din Chishti Ajmeri (d. 1236),
the first Indian Chishti master, was granted the dominion (wilayat) of all
of South Asia, for himself and his successors, at al-Hujwiri’s tomb.51 This
historical linkage runs deep within the Chishti Sabiri silsila as well. As we
have seen, Shahidullah Faridi and his elder brother Faruq Ahmed converted
to Islam after reading al-Hujwiri’s classic text Kashf al-mahjub. And to
this day, Faruq Ahmed lies buried in a small, subterranean room within his
patron saint’s tomb complex. As a result of these multiple historical trajecto-
ries, al-Hujwiri is remembered as an honorary Chishti Sabiri, and his shrine is
a focus of local ritual practice. Disciples who live in Lahore regularly visit al-
Hujwiri’s shrine on Thursday evenings before attending the communal
halqa-i zikr, and they often repeat the journey on Sundays as well. A senior
Pakistani disciple outlines the routine:
Murids do not go to the mazar [of al-Hujwiri] collectively. They go privately

or as a family, but not as a group. We do not even go for the 'urs [death anniver-
sary]. We only go for one-day attendance. We generally keep to our
silsila. Those [shrines] are sufficient for us. But since Data Sahab precedes
the silsila we visit him as a matter of respect. When we go to shaykhs other than
our silsila, we recite Fatiha twice. You are a stranger there, so you recite one
Fatiha on behalf of your shaykh to introduce yourself and then you recite one
for yourself. But if you go to Data Sahab, you recite it only once because
you are in his silsila. This is done out of respect. (March 16, 2001, Lahore)
Not surprisingly, it was Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh who established this weekly
pilgrimage, instigating a new ritual practice that Chishti Sabiris in Lahore
continue today.
Wherever and whenever it happens, physical proximity to a wali Allah pays
spiritual dividends. In the presence of a saint’s tomb, disciples assert, there is
a palpable intensity and clarity to the experience of contemplation. After per-
forming the prescribed prayers, murids find a quiet place to sit in full view of
the saint’s tomb and immediately enter into muraqaba. To an outside
observer, the ritual performance appears utterly inconspicuous and unre-
markable. In describing her regular routine at the shrine of al-Hujwiri, how-
ever, a female disciple reveals the inner dimensions of contemplation:
You should say, in your heart, “I am sitting in front of Data Sahab. Data Sahab
is sitting there, and I am sitting here.” Then you just close your eyes, and take
long, slow, deep breaths. You must become aware of your breathing. With that,
your thoughts stop. You do not pray and then get up and walk around. You will
not experience anything that way. This is what Mamu Jan [Wahid Bakhsh]
taught us when we went for 'umra [the minor pilgrimage to Mecca]. That is
how you get your mind blank. Like he used to say, “It takes fifty years [to quiet
the mind] unless you become aware of your breathing.” That is the one way to
stop your thoughts. This is how you do muraqaba for Data Sahab. If you want
to meditate on Allah, that is even easier. Just close your eyes and say, “Allah is
with me, inside me, outside me.” Of course, you do not picture Allah. When
you visualize Data Sahab, you see Data Sahab. Many times he will appear to you
and give you messages. Of course, you do not picture Allah. You just feel Him,
inside and out. When I go to Data Sahab I sit there for ten to fifteen minutes
of meditation and receive an answer to all my problems. (October 31, 2000,
Lahore)
In the meditative silence of contemplation, Chishti Sabiri murids try to

establish a direct connection with the saint. In articulating these experiences,
they compare the spiritual energy ( faizan) that radiates from the saint’s tomb
during muraqaba to an intense electric current surging through the body. In
the words of another female Pakistani adept, “The main focus at the shrine is
the communication with Sahab-i Mazar, because he is your host. The
moments spent at the mazars are very valuable. You realize this the moment
you close your eyes [in muraqaba]. At that time you wish that you had
spent your whole life at the mazar. The things which you receive there are
invaluable” (June 17, 2001, Lahore).
Marking Chishti Sabiri Space in Malaysia

Intriguingly, the expansion of Chishti Sabiri spiritual domain is not limited to
Pakistan. On the opposite side of the Indian Ocean, a Sufi shrine in Malaysia
now provides an alternative outlet for pilgrimage and worship. The mazar of
Sultan al-'Arifin (“The King of Gnostics”), Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir
Thani, is located on Pulau Besar (“Big Island”); see figure 5.1. Despite the
name, this is a small island (ten square miles) located five miles south of the
historical port city of Malacca, three miles off the coastline in the Straits of
Malacca. Pulau Besar served as a Japanese military base during the Second
World War, and today it is the site of Pandanusa Resort—a small-scale tourist
attraction with a restaurant, swimming pool, and a modest eighteen-hole golf
course.52 The island is also rich in history and contains an array of ancient
graves. The shrine of Sultan al-'Arifin is located in a prominent position near
the beachfront. The grave was covered with an elaborate wooden structure
until the 1970s when it was torn down. It has recently been rebuilt as a
modest open-air tomb constructed of tiles, covered with a metal roof, and
surrounded by a gate. The mazar is now funded and administered through a
Figure 5.1 The Shrine of Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir Thani, Pulau Besar, Malaysia
local religious endowment (waqf ) (interview: October 6, 2001, Kuala

Lumpur). Today the local Malay and Indian Muslim communities are the
shrine’s primary patrons, although groups of Chinese and Hindu devotees
visit regularly as well. A senior Malaysian murid likened the mazar to Ajmer
Sharif—the massive tomb complex of the patron Christi saint Mu'in ad-Din
Chishti in Rajasthan, north India—describing it a sacred and powerful
site that draws devotees from diverse religious backgrounds (interview:
October 2, 2001, Pulau Besar).
The story of Sultan al-'Arifin, Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir Thani, is
shrouded in mystery. According to several prominent Malaysian disciples,
the shrine’s caretaker possesses a spiritual genealogy (shajara) written in
Jawi, the local Malay language in Arabic script. This document names Sultan
al-'Arifin as the son of Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani Thani (d. 1533), the
famous Qadiri saint of Uch Sharif—an ancient city located seventy miles
southwest of Multan in Pakistan.53 With the exception of this text, however,
there seems to be no extant archive of the saint, no textual record to docu-
ment his life and legacy. As a result, Sultan al-'Arifin’s memory is now per-
petuated through oral histories, some of them conflictive. Local legend
suggests that the shaykh received instructions to travel to the area for prose-
lytization (tabligh) at the tomb of the Prophet during 'umra (the “lesser pil-
grimage” to Mecca). He arrived on a merchant ship and spent most of his
life preaching on the mainland before retreating to the island in his later
years. The saint is credited with converting large numbers of the local pop-
ulation to Islam. Beyond these standard saintly tropes, little else is known
about Sultan al-'Arifin. It is worth noting, however, that the broad stokes of
his life closely parallel the biography of Hamzah Fansuri, the famous
sixteenth-century Malay scholar, poet, and Qadiri master. According to
historian Peter Riddell, “The earliest documented case we have of a Malay
scholar traveling to the Arab world to undertake studies of the Islamic
sciences is that of Hamzah Fansuri, the great mystic of the late 16th century.
He was initiated into the Qadiriyya Sufi Order in Arabia, and in doing so
established, or perhaps continued, a tradition which many Malay religious
scholars were later to follow.”54
I visited Pulau Besar in October 2001 in the company of a senior
Malaysian disciple from Kuala Lumpur. Though the shrine’s caretaker was
absent that day, we toured the island with a villager and devotee of the saint
who related the local history. According to our interlocutor, Sultan al-
'Arifin’s own spiritual guide—Sayyid Yusuf Saddiq, a Naqshbandi shaykh
from Baghdad—is also buried within the confines of the mazar. The island is
dotted with a host of other unmarked graves as well. These are said to include
seven shaykhs from Indonesia who were spiritually guided to the island by the
nine legendary saints of Java (wali sanga), along with two shaykhs
from Baghdad.55 All of them are said to be the disciples of Sultan al-'Arifin
(interview: October 2, 2001, Pulau Besar). Our guide also led us to two
other unmarked graves, both of them women: a local Hindu convert and the
wife of the saint who was originally from Palembang (south Sumatra).
A detailed history of this island, its Sufi inhabitants, and their role in the
spread of Islam throughout the Indonesian archipelago has yet to be written.
What is clear, however, is that historical ambiguity does not deter contempo-
rary religious faith and practice. Today’s Malaysian disciples interpret Sultan
al-'Arifin’s connections to an ancestral South Asian homeland near the birth-
place (and now shrine) of their own shaykh as an especially auspicious sign.
Late in life, Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani made this connection explicit. On a
visit to Malaysia in 1991, he accompanied his murids to the island for pil-
grimage. After performing prayers and muraqaba, he publicly sanctioned the
place for Chishti Sabiri ritual practice. In the words of a senior Malaysian dis-
ciple, “According to my shaykh, this mazar here at Pulau Besar oversees the
care of all Malaysia. He [Sultan al-'Arifin, Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir
Thani] is in charge of this territory of Malaysia. He is the real source of spir-
itualism in this country” (October 2, 2001, Pulau Besar).
The symmetry of this Indian Ocean network is remarkable. The humble
tomb of sixteenth-century South Asian Sufi saint buried on a remote island
in the heart of Southeast Asia now serves as an alternative center of pilgrim-
age for the Malaysian disciples of a twentieth-century Pakistani Sufi master.
This connection is now sanctified through ritual practice. On the last
Sunday of each month, a group of Malaysian murids regularly travel to
Pulau Besar for pilgrimage. They also make the trip during the annual com-
memoration of the death anniversary ('urs) of major Chishti Sabiri shaykhs
when they are unable to travel to Pakistan or India. At the shrine, disciples
sit in muraqaba while facing the tomb. They describe the faizan at the
shrine as being particular intense. “It’s just like electric current, like this
wind blowing towards you,” states a senior murid. “You feel a sensation. It
goes right through you. It makes your hair stand up. You feel high”
(September 30, 2001, Kuala Lumpur). This experience, Malaysian disciples
insist, offers tangible proof of the silsila’s powerful and enduring connection
with Sultan al-'Arifin.
The Malaysian murids carry on their ritual practices in an environment
that, in many ways, parallels that of their Pakistani counterparts. In con-
temporary Malaysia too Sufism is a highly contested symbol in a politicized
public debate over Islamic authenticity and religion’s relationship with
state ideology and power. Given this charged atmosphere, murids maintain
a low profile. In the words of a senior disciple, “We keep quiet because of
the government. In Indonesia Sufism is everywhere. In Pakistan, people
participate in 'urs celebrations. But here in Malaysia, there is nothing. In
fact, instead of celebrating they destroy the mazars. One of the largest
ones, in fact, was demolished by the state government” (September 30,
2001, Kuala Lumpur). For the growing ranks of contemporary Chishti
Sabiri disciples in Malaysia, Pulau Besar therefore provides a critical space
for ritual experience and the expression of Sufi identity. In the twenty-first
century, this humble Sufi shrine plays a major role in transplanting the
silsila into the landscape of Southeast Asia, marking Malaysia as Chishti
Sabiri sacred space.
Pilgrimage Networks and Musical

Assemblies at Sufi Shrines
From humble roadside markers to massive institutional complexes, the tombs
of Muslim holy men mediate between regional cultural identity and universal
Islamic order. As historian Richard Eaton notes,
In India these shrines displayed, theater-style and in microcosm, the moral

order of the Islamic macrocosm. Although such shrines possessed important
economic, political and social ties with the masses of villagers who frequented
them, their fundamental raison d'etre was religious. For it was through its ritu-
als that a shrine made Islam accessible to nonlettered masses, providing them
with vivid and concrete manifestations of the divine order, and integrating
them into its ritualized drama both as participants and as sponsors.56
Sufi shrines function as heterotopias. As loci of alterity, Sufi tomb complexes

provide alternative, liminal spaces that stand in sharp contrast to the realm of
everyday experience. They are “something like counter-sites, a kind of effec-
tively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be
found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and
inverted.”57 As the Pakpattan tragedy of 2001 so clearly illustrated, Sufi
shrines are also controversial, contested spaces. At no time is this more evi-
dent than during 'urs—the annual death anniversaries of Sufi saints that draw
huge crowds of pilgrims and a bright public spotlight.
Contemporary Chishti Sabiri shaykhs are staunch defenders of the efficacy
and legitimacy of Sufi shrines in general and the public rituals associated with
'urs in particular. They pointedly reject the critique of Muslim revivalists who
denounce shrine worship with accusations of idolatry (shirk) and allegations
of outside, Hindu influence. Shahidullah Faridi encapsulates this counter-
polemic in a lecture delivered to his disciples during the 'urs at Pakpattan on
July 20, 1977:
Among the signs of Allah, the most significant are those which are associated
with his special creatures and prophets. This means that relics of saintly people
are signs of God. In the same way, we come here because these relics have an
association with a saintly person like Baba Sahib. We come here because they
are signs of Allah. The persons who make objections are on the wrong side.
They do not realize that signs of God are shown through men. There is no
question of shirk. We know that man is not God . . . Whatever we do here, if we
respect the mazar, if we kiss it or pay any sort of respect to it, this is because it
is one of His signs. Baba Sahab himself is a sign of God. If one understands that,
then there is no conflict.58
As the “signs of God” (ayat Allah), the Sufi saints are the very embodiment
of Islamic orthodoxy. The outpouring of love and respect at Sufi tombs,
Shahidullah concludes, is therefore a natural expression of Muslim devotion
that violates neither sunna nor shari'a.
For Chishti Sabiris, this theological and legal debate raises another flash-
point in the contested legacy of Deoband—the madrasa and reformist
movement inspired by the nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri masters, Hajji
Imdad Allah al-Faruqi al-Muhajir Makki (1817–1899) and Rashid Ahmad
Gangohi (1829–1905). In contemporary Pakistan, Deobandi scholars are
known for their sharp critique of the popular practices associated with Sufi
shrines. Chishti Sabiris view this as a misreading and ultimately a betrayal of
the teachings of their nineteenth-century predecessors. Malfuzat-i shaykh
records a revealing conversation on this topic. In the text, Shahidullah Faridi
is asked by a murid to explain the rationale behind the Deobandi fatwas (for-
mal legal opinions) against worship at Sufi shrines. In response, the shaykh
draws a distinction between outward (zahir) and inward (batin) dimensions
of knowledge and experience. Sufi masters, he argues, are the true heirs to
the Prophet—the custodians of Islamic tradition. “I say that those noble
Sufis who have received authority [ijazat yafta] in genuine silsilas are in real-
ity the supreme rulers,” Shahidullah tells his audience. “As Hajji Imdad Allah
al-Muhajir Makki Sahab, may God have mercy upon him, has said, without
inner knowledge [batini 'ilm], outer knowledge [zahiri 'ilm] is useless. This
is absolutely true. A human being does not have the correct perspective with-
out inner disclosures [batini inkishafat] and inner vision [batini musha-
hada].”59 Shahidullah goes on to contextualize the Deobandi polemic
against local customs associated with “popular” Sufism. The commoners
('aam) who have no appreciation of Sufi doctrine and practice and who lack
proper guidance must be protected from improper behavior, he acknowl-
edges. But these prohibitions were never meant to apply to elite Sufi adepts
(khass). In Shahidullah’s words,
A [Deobandi] mufti issues a juridical opinion [fatwa] for the ignorant com-
moners [jahil 'awam]. In other words, it is for those who are completely illit-
erate. The fatwa determines whether something is acceptable for them or not.
However, this does not mean that the fatwa applies to the people of distinction
[khawas], those with understanding who are engaged in suluk. This is a matter
of expedience. Certain saints have declared a general fatwa that commoners
should not go the shrines. This does not mean that they are denying that one
receives spiritual blessing by going to shrines . . . I could give many examples of
famous saints who issued this kind of fatwa, and yet it is clear from their mal-
fuzat that they themselves frequented shrines.60
Contemporary Chishti Sabiris point to the precedent of the spiritual

masters of their own tradition to defend the efficacy and orthodoxy of pil-
grimage to Sufi shrines (ziyarat). They note that the founders of Deoband
were themselves active patrons of shrines. As Ernst and Lawrence illustrate,
“The presence of Hindu practices at a Muslim shrine cannot explain centuries
of participation of educated Sufi masters in pilgrimage, for they found
ziyarat pilgrimage to be an authentic expression of Islamic piety, Qur'anic in
spirit and firmly based on the model of the Prophet Muhammad.”61 A senior
murid emphasizes this point by highlighting the example of Hajji Imdad
Allah and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi:
The Deobandis now quote from [the writings of] Rashid Ahmad Gangohi and
say, “Do not go the mazars, and do not listen to music [sama'].” Our shaykhs
do not deny this history. In fact, somebody once asked Hazrat Hajji Imdad
Allah Muhajir Makki, “Rashid Ahmad Gangohi is your khalifa, but he opposes
sama' whereas you listen to sama'. He opposes attendance at the mazars,
whereas you support it. Why is this?” To which Hazrat Hajji Imdad Allah
replied, “He is also right. It is the need of the time.” Hazrat Rashid Ahmad
Gangohi stopped people from going to mazars, although he himself main-
tained the mazar [of his ancestor] Hazrat 'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi. At the
time, the British were trying to exploit Sufism, saying that it was not Islamic. So
in the original school of Deoband, they said, “No, do not go to mazars because
the Hindus also go there.” It was never meant that the elite [khass] should not
go, however! That is the explanation of our masha'ikh. (March 16, 2001,
Lahore)
In reclaiming what they see as the lost legacy of Deoband’s founders, con-
temporary Chishti Sabiri disciples champion and defend Sufi tomb complexes
such as Pakpattan as doorways to divinity. For them, Sufi shrines serve as fonts
of spiritual blessing (baraka) and portals to Divine energy (faizan), especially
during the auspicious occasion of a Sufi saint’s death anniversary ('urs).
'Urs: The Serial Khanaqah

The Chishti Sabiri ritual calendar is highlighted by a pilgrimage network cen-
tered on the 'urs celebrations of the silsila’s spiritual giants. 'Urs literally
means “marriage.” In the context of Sufi practice, it serves as a metaphor for
the wali Allah’s final union with God.62 According to Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh
Sial Rabbani,
The phenomena of 'urs has a special significance and importance in the world
of Islam. It is not only a festival for social gatherings and exchange of ideas with
a recreational flavor, but it is also an occasion for intense spiritual training.
People from far and wide come to pay homage to the spiritual benefactor, recite
the Fatiha for his soul, and flock around the grave for spiritual inspiration
(faizan). Now because the departed soul himself is the recipient of enhanced
favor and blessings characteristic of this occasion, he is in a bountiful mood and
bestows more and more favors on his people, giving special preference to the
elite engaged in the arduous spiritual journey [suluk]. Another advantage of
'urs is that people get an opportunity to meet their pir-brothers, particularly
the elder members of the brotherhood and some Shayukh [sic] as well.63
Throughout South Asia, 'urs celebrations draw massive crowds to the shrines of
Sufi saints. These festivals combine religious fervor, public spectacle, and a
bustling economic exchange. For Chishti Sabiri disciples, however, the network
of annual 'urs pilgrimages are a platform for ritual practice—the most important
venue for the experience and expression of the silsila’s communal identity.
The Chishti Sabiri order commemorates the 'urs of four major Chishti
saints at key shrines in Pakistan. The schedule for this cycle of communal pil-
grimages—measured according to the Muslim lunar calendar—is as follows:
1. Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din Chishti Ajmeri (6 Rajab): at the shrine of Baba

Farid Ganj-i Shakkar in Pakpattan;
2. Baba Farid Ganj-i Shakkar (5 Muharram): at the saint’s tomb in
Pakpattan;
3. Shahidullah Faridi (17 Ramadan): at the saint’s tomb in Karachi;
4. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (20 Dhu al-Qa'da): at the saint’s tomb in
Allahabad.
The logic and logistics of this pilgrimage network are significant. It pairs two
thirteenth-century Chishti masters—Khwaja Mu'in ad-Din (d. 1246), the
first Chishti saint of India, and Baba Farid Ganj-i Shakkar (d. 1265), the
patron saint of Pakistan—with a pair of twentieth-century Chishti Sabiri
shaykhs. Since he died on Hajj and is buried on the plain of 'Arafat,
Muhammad Zauqi Shah’s 'urs is not included in this annual cycle, though
most disciples do honor his memory in private on the day of his death
anniversary.
Chishti Sabiri 'urs pilgrimages reflect the legacy of Partition. The
redrawing of South Asia’s geopolitical boundaries in 1947 reconstituted
the nation and citizenship, mandating new maps and new passports. With
the emergence of an independent (and Islamic) Pakistan, the absence of the
Jain, Sikh, and Hindu communities profoundly altered traditional cultural
practices and local religious identities. Partition occasioned a parallel shift
in Chishti Sabiri ritual practice as well. After 1947, Pakistani disciples
could no longer easily travel to the major Sufi shrines in India—including
the tomb of Mu'in ad-Din Chishti in Ajmer, central Rajasthan. In
response, the silsila transferred the 'urs of Muin ad-Din to the shrine of
Baba Farid in Pakpattan. The realignment of Sufi geography is also seen in
the emergence of entirely new Chishti Sabiri shrines on Pakistani soil. The
growing tomb cults of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi in Karachi and Shaykh
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani in Allahabad now effectively mark Pakistan as
Chishti Sabiri sacred space.
For today’s Chishti Sabiris, 'urs effectively serves as a serial khanaqah.
Four times a year murids—both men and women—travel from all over
Pakistan and beyond, gathering together for short but intensive periods of
spiritual immersion. 'Urs offers a rare opportunity for Chishti Sabiri murids
to live together in the presence of the teaching shaykh as a collective, unified
community. In the words of a novice disciple, “Sufis used to spend their lives
in the khanaqah. But these days we experience the khanaqah only during
'urs. We get away from the world there for a short time. It’s like going to a
monastery and staying there for a week” (September 2, 2001, Karachi).
Significantly, disciples mark this break with tradition as a necessary innovation,
a pragmatic response to the ground-level realities of the times. As a senior
Pakistani murid explains,
[In the past] there were so many living saints, and travel was difficult, so 'urs
probably did not have as much significance. But now with modern travel, no
khanaqahs, and fewer living shaykhs, this has assumed a greater importance.
They [Chishti Sabiri shaykhs] encourage people who fly from Canada, or even
Jeddah to come and attend the 'urs. It is that valuable. People are encouraged
to part with a lot of money. The Malaysian murids, they also come. This is the
purification of the lower self [tazkiya-i nafs]. Everyone receives a short
refresher course, six or seven days. This is what many people do not understand,
the traditionalists who think of it ['urs] in negative terms. The festive part of
'urs has existed for a very long time, with people offering ritual gifts [nazrana],
flowers, and cloths to cover the grave [chadar]. But the kind of attendance we
have is not for nazrana. It is only for the company of the shakyh at the mazar.
(August 26, 2001, Lahore)
As this quote illustrates, Chishti Sabiris view 'urs as a vital dimension of

suluk. Many disciples accept significant personal and financial sacrifice in
order to participate in these annual events. Given the distance and cost, the
logistics of travel to Pakistan are particularly challenging for the Malaysian
murids. Even so, most of them regularly attend, believing that the spiritual
benefits are worth every hardship. In the words of a senior Malaysian disci-
ple, “We go whenever we can. If it is possible, if they have the means, murids
normally attend. Our shaykhs strongly encourage it. We know from experi-
ence that 'urs is a very important training ground, an important part of suluk.
Once you have tasted it you always want to go” (September 26, 2001, Kuala
Lumpur).
The experience of 'urs provides Chishti Sabiri disciples with ample oppor-
tunities for conversation and companionship. The journey to and from the
shrine, coupled with the intensive atmosphere at the mazar, forges a deep
bond between murids—a heightened sense of communal identity that
anthropologist Victor Turner famously labeled communitas.64 In many ways,
the experience of travel and communal living for brief periods of time recalls
the practices of the famous South Asian revivalist movement: the Tablighi
Jama'at. Founded in 1926 by another Deoband alum named Muhammad
Ilyas, Tablighi Jama'at members promote their grassroots agenda via travel-
ing missionary tours designed to teach humility and encourage “a state of
permanent vulnerability and uncertainty in which, outside one’s normal
moorings, one learns to be dependent upon God.”65 Chishti Sabiri murids
experience a strikingly similar dynamic during 'urs pilgrimages. The differ-
ence, of course, is one of emphasis. While the Tablighi’s mission focuses on
proselytization (da'wa), Chishti Sabiris view pilgrimage as a ritual discipline
aimed expressly at the individual murid’s spiritual development.
Within the liminal space of a Sufi shrine, Chishti Sabiris encounter a sacral-
ized universe in which the normal structures of everyday social practice are
temporarily suspended. In Allahabad, Karachi, and Pakpattan, the silsila
maintains separate living compounds for men and women adjacent to the
saint’s tomb. During the weeklong 'urs retreats, groups of murids share
rooms and bathing facilities, gathering together for meals prepared in the on-
site kitchens. Each of these temporary khanaqahs offers a self-contained,
communal environment in close proximity to the shrine complex. The living
conditions are austere but comfortable, providing a convenient and accessible
oasis for the real work at hand: ritual performance.
In the context of 'urs, disciples view the shrine as an ambivalent space.
They approach the mazar with a palpable sense of respect and awe, viewing
the saint’s tomb as a receptacle of immense power and spiritual energy
( faizan). At the same time, the presence of large, boisterous, and often
unruly crowds in the narrow confines of the dargah are seen as potentially
dangerous and polluting. This is especially true at Pakpattan where thousands
of pilgrims are pressed into an extremely cramped area. As a result, murids
generally avoid lingering in the shrine for extended periods of time. When
they do enter the confines of the dargah, they navigate through its public
spaces with a careful attention to the rules of etiquette. As Wahid Bakhsh
notes, “At each 'urs there are special etiquettes of attendance and participa-
tion in the traditional rites and rituals peculiar to the place and the occasion,
and the attendants are duty-bound to know them for strict observance to
facilitate the adequate reception of spiritual benefits.”66
Chishti Sabiris insist that adab protects and preserves the sanctity of the
'urs. Before entering any shrine, murids perform ablutions and dress in clean
clothes. Both men and women typically wear simple, white shalwar kamiz.
The men cover their heads with a skull cap or a modest head covering; the
women cover their heads with a scarf, or dupatta. Decorum also dictates
strict rules of bodily comportment and behavior designed to keep the Sufi
adepts’ attention focused on the saint. This is often difficult amid the carni-
val-like atmosphere. According to Wahid Bakhsh, however, the jostling
crowds at a shrine serve a higher purpose, providing a vital buffer from the
overwhelming intensity of the saint’s faizan:
While sitting or walking about in the shrine area, the seeker must not take
recourse to frivolous activities (laughing, joking, talking loudly, showing off).
Quarrelling or outbursts of temper are forbidden. One should remain meek
and humble, and subservient to the rules and regulations of the place. The
seekers should not hate or talk ill of anybody. The seekers should not meddle
with anybody, not even the apparently mad persons whom he sees dancing
about or the impertinent mischief-mongers who try to pick a quarrel with him.
These things aim at fulfilling a special purpose . . . The greatest purpose which
mad men and women and unwanted human beings indulging in antinomian
activities serve is this: they are there to counterbalance the enormous torrents
of blessings, charms and fascinations which, if left unimpaired by the clowns,
would turn people mad by their intensity.67
For the duration of 'urs, Chishti Sabiris move in and out of the shrine
complex for short periods of intense, focused ritual practice. There is no fixed
format for the daily routine, and the logistics vary depending on the exact
location. Everywhere and at all times, however, murids are meticulous about
maintaining their daily prayers throughout the pilgrimage. Prayers take place
either in the privacy of the compound or in the public spaces of the shrine. At
the Pakpattan 'urs, for instance, most murids offer communal prayers inside
the dargah. According to a senior Pakistani disciple, “Friday prayers are not
obligatory during 'urs, but we go there to share the company of the shaykh.
Our attendance [at the shrine] is very short. We arrive just before the call to
prayer, pray two obligatory [farz] prayers and come back [to the com-
pound]” (April 25, 2001, Lahore). Most disciples perform extra devotions as
well, usually in the privacy of their rooms within the silsila’s compound. As
always, prayer—both personal and collective—anchors Chishti Sabiri piety.
Throughout the 'urs disciples continue their meditative practices. Like
prayer, muraqaba is a ritual mainstay during any pilgrimage. While the time,
frequency, and location are determined by each individual, most devotees try
to take full advantage of the auspicious occasion. In the words of a female
Pakistani murid,
Muraqaba usually takes place in the early morning, after morning prayers
[fajr]. But it is really up to you, there is no fixed timing for anybody. The two
prayers which are performed collectively are fajr and maghrib [evening prayer].
Beyond that nobody asks you, “Have you done your prayers yet, or not?” It is
a personal decision. If you want to pray together or if you do not, it is up to
you. Muraqaba is typically done before or after fajr. And then again after 'asr
[afternoon prayers] or in the evening, after maghrib. But in between, I have not
seen anybody going down there [to the mazar]. (February 26, 2001, Lahore)
At the 'urs, muraqaba is usually performed individually, though on occasion

groups of male murids accompany the shaykh to the shrine for contemplation.
This is a regular practice, for example, in Pakpattan where following commu-
nal prayers disciples sit together in silent contemplation, facing the saint’s
tomb. Given the general lack of privacy during 'urs, however, zikr is fre-
quently restricted. Disciples generally avoid zikr in Karachi and Pakpattan
altogether, though it is performed at the 'urs in Allahabad. A senior disciple
explains,
Zikr does not take place during Hazrat Shahidullah’s 'urs [in Karachi] because
it is during Ramadan. At Pakpattan we do not do anything extra because Baba
Sahab’s influence is so great and so powerful. But in Allahabad, we make a
short appearance at the mazar and do zikr. Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh was a hard
taskmaster, and he does not want his murids to give up what they are normally
doing. So zikr is performed individually. Most people look for isolated places,
sometimes inside the mosque. The light is shut out, so nobody sees each other.
Murids try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Those who usually do zikr in a
loud voice, do it in a low voice. (August 26, 2001, Lahore)
While making necessary allowances for the unique logistics of pilgrimage,

Chishti Sabiris aim to deepen and intensify their spiritual devotions during 'urs.
The Chishti Sabiri living quarters and ritual spaces are segregated by
gender during 'urs. While men and women travel together, once they reach
the shrine they separate for the duration of the spiritual retreat. The access for
women at the mazar varies according to location. During interviews, a
number of female disciples expressed a level of frustration with these arrange-
ments. In the words of one female disciple originally from the northwest
frontier town of Peshawar,
I am quite used to the culture of segregation when it comes to the saints and
the shrines. In the frontier, we have so many shrines where you can walk into
the saint’s shrines. Women can go inside, we can touch the graves. At many
places there is a separate side for the women. It is not like this at Pakpattan
Sharif. I personally feel a bit of, well not resentment, but something else. I just
feel that we should also be given a chance. At Hazrat Wahid Bakhsh’s mazar [in
Allahabad] the women can go inside, but when the women are there men don’t
come, and when the men are there we don’t go. Still, at least we can go and
touch the grave. At Pakpattan Sharif women cannot even enter [the inner sanc-
tum of the tomb]. The most you can do is touch and kiss the threshold.
(October 31, 2000, Lahore)
Although they remain separated at the shrines, male and female disciples
follow a similar daily regimen within their own discrete spaces. Amid the
chaos of the 'urs festivities, murids move back and forth between the
silsila’s private compound and the public space of the shrine, alternating
between communal and private devotions. In between, disciples also have
scheduled meetings with their spiritual guide. Today Shaykh Siraj 'Ali is the
silsila’s sole teaching shaykh. During the annual cycle of 'urs commemora-
tions, he is accessible to male and female murids alike. The shaykh offers
collective dars in both compounds and also arranges time to meet with
disciples individually. Another female murid describes a typical day at the
'urs in Pakpattan Sharif:
Morning prayer is held at the women’s compound or at the shrine. We come

back for breakfast around seven thirty or eight o’clock. Some of us take a short
rest, others go about preparing to take a bath and changing clothes. At about
ten o’clock, Hazrat Siraj Sahab [the current teaching shaykh] usually gives us an
audience. Apart from anything he may wish to convey to us, we also ask ques-
tions. This is for about an hour or so. If he is not present, one of the senior
female murids answers our questions.
After this we chat and share experiences of a spiritual nature. There is hardly
any talk of worldly things, as Hazrat Siraj Sahab discourages that during the
'urs. We may individually go to the shrine for muraqaba, but that is generally
between afternoon and evening prayers. We go for communal prayer at the
noon prayers, after which we come back for lunch and a little rest. We usually
say 'asr at the compound, and then go to the shrine for muraqaba and the
communal maghrib payers. After that we come back and have our dinner and
prepare for the qawwali. After qawwali, we go back to sleep or talk or mediate
individually.68
For every Chishti Sabiri murid, male and female alike, the fundamental
purpose of any 'urs retreat is to strengthen the connection with both the saint
and his living heir: the teaching shaykh. 'Urs offers disciples unparalleled
access to the Sufi master and a unique opportunity to encounter the out-
pouring of spiritual energy ( faizan) at the saint’s tomb. A senior Pakistani
disciple illustrates the importance of 'urs through a story about Shahidullah
Faridi:
Hazrat Shahidullah Faridi was at the shrine of Baba Farid Shakar Ganj [at
Pakpattan]. It was the time of the 'urs, and people were coming out of the Gate
of Heaven [bihishti darwaza]. Looking towards the crowd that was coming out
[from the inner sanctum] he addressed the audience who was sitting there, and
said, “The people who waste their life in the colleges and universities for knowl-
edge should come here once. The knowledge they will get can in a fraction of
a second cannot be compared to the knowledge they will get in years and years
in the universities.” And then he said, “These are the real universities, these
places. Real knowledge is given to you through the attention of the saint,
through inspiration. This knowledge is very precious, and you cannot find it
anywhere else.” (April 29, 2001, Bahawalpur)
In this narrative, Shahidullah Faridi distinguishes once again between 'ilm

(rational, discursive book knowledge) and the inner realm of ma'rifa (the
intuitive, esoteric knowledge of the Sufi). For Chishti Sabiris, it is the out-
pouring of blessings from the Sufi saint that makes 'urs such an invaluable
resource for spiritual insight and transformative experience.
Thus, during the annual 'urs pilgrimages Chishti Sabiri disciples amplify
their daily ritual practices in a concentrated, communal setting. Leaving
behind their normal routines and the worries of their everyday lives, they
immerse themselves in prayer and rituals of remembrance in close proximity
to the tombs of the saints of their silsila. Living together in close quarters,
disciples share food and stories in between their individual and collective rit-
ual practices. A great deal of learning comes from these personal inter-
changes. A female Pakistani murid attests to the central importance of these
horizontal teaching networks during 'urs:
The most significant impact of these 'urs for me and other women I presume is
the tremendous sense of sharing and belonging that we experience. Many times
you will find us huddled around the elder murids, hoping to glean any new
piece of information from them. There are groups of women all over the place
talking, sharing dreams and experiences—looking for guidance from every-
thing that is said. We talk about anything our pirs may have said, or things one
of us has read recently. You would be surprised by the amount of reading the
silsila women do!
There is a tremendous sense of sharing. Even the food we bring along
individually is laid out for everyone. Everybody is included, even the children
who run and play around the compound. There is of course a certain reverence
displayed for the shaykh’s wife and certain elder murids, but otherwise all are
treated with the same concern and respect. It is a beautiful experience that I
always look forward to.69
For twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiris, the intensity of the 'urs experience

serves to strengthen community and cement collective identity.
Mahfil-i Sama': The Musical Assembly

For Chishti Sabiris, the culmination of any 'urs retreat is the musical assembly
(mahfil-i sama'). Sama'—an Arabic word meaning “listening”—is the ritual-
ized performance of ecstatic Sufi poetry accompanied by music. Cultivated
by the Chishti order since the twelfth century, this unique genre of religious
expression has inspired poets, spiritual seekers, and popular audiences alike.
Along the way, it has also invoked frequent criticism from detractors who
question its Islamic credentials. In South Asia, the local variety of sama' is
known colloquially as qawwali (“recited”). From Bollywood film sound-
tracks to popular music, qawwali is ubiquitous, transcending religious and
cultural borders. Recently, the growing popularity of “world music” has
brought qawwali to new international audiences. Accelerated through
emerging technologies—from CDs to cyberspace—this growing reach has
transformed performers such as the late Nusrat Fateh 'Ali Khan and ensem-
bles such as the Sabri Brothers into mass-marketed, global pop stars. Yet even
as qawwali expands its boundaries and explores new frontiers, it remains
deeply rooted in South Asian Sufi history, piety, and practice. Figure 5.2 is a
picture of qawwali singers at the 2001 'urs festival of Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani in Allahabad, Pakistan.
Figure 5.2 Qawwali Singers at the 2001 'urs Festival of Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani,
Allahabad, Pakistan
Qawwali is often described as Indo-Muslim “gospel music.” Both lyrically

and musically, it is emotive, celebratory, inspiring, and potentially transfor-
mative. In the context of the Sufi path, however, sama' is first and foremost
a pedagogical tool—a ritual technology for the molding and shaping of a
moral, virtuous self. In response to the often caustic harangues of critics over
the centuries, Chishti masters have for centuries marshaled a spirited defense
of sama'. No less an authority than the famous thirteenth-century luminary
Shaykh Nizam ad-Din Awliya' (d. 1325) recognized and defended the use
of music as a spiritual catalyst for Sufi adepts willing to engage it with disci-
pline, purpose, and sobriety. In the face of controversy and criticism, the
shaykh remained unapologetic in his assessment of Sufi musical poetry.
“sama',” Nizam ad-Din declared, “is a proving ground for men of spiritual
prowess.” 70
sama' assumed a central role in Chishti devotional practice by the twelfth
century. From the beginning, Chishti shaykhs vigorously defended the prac-
tice against critics who dismissed musical performance as inappropriate, even
blasphemous. In response, Chishti masters championed music as an integral
part of Sufi devotion, arguing that it was fully in keeping with the dictates of
normative Islamic law (shari'a) when performed under the proper condi-
tions. Overt time, Sufi musical traditions gained broad popularity and royal
patronage. The use of music for spiritual inspiration, however, remained a
hallmark of the Chishti order. As Bruce Lawrence notes,
In the Indian environment from the period of the Delhi Sultanate through the
Mughal era, sama' assumed a unique significance as the integrating modus
operandi of the Chishti silsila. Chishti apologists adopted a distinctive attitude
to sama': far from being an embarrassment to them, as the literature sometimes
suggests, sama' was aggressively defended as an essential component of the
spiritual discipline or ascesis incumbent on all Sufis . . . sama' became, if not
the monopoly of the Chishtiyya, the preeminent symbol crystallizing their posi-
tion vis-a-vis other Indo-Muslim leadership groups.71
Postcolonial Chishti Sabiris are as resolute in their defense of this tradition

as their premodern counterparts. They too feel the need to marshal evidence
and arguments to demonstrate the spiritual efficacy and legality of Sufi
music—a defensive posturing that suggests they are aware of (and threatened
by) critics of the tradition. The collective writings of twentieth-century
Chishti Sabiri shaykhs abound with historical and anecdotal references argu-
ing for the orthodoxy of sama'. The discourses of Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi
Shah, for instance, contain lengthy discussions of the merits of music and the
requisite decorum for its apt performance.72 Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani followed in his mentor’s footsteps as a passionate advocate of sama'.
His diverse and eclectic writings offer a broad range of evidence drawn from
the Qur'an, the sunna, and the lives of myriad Sufi masters to defend music’s
utility. In Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar [The Station of “The Treasury of Sugar”]
Wahid Bakhsh offers a detailed counterpolemic in a section entitled
“Criticism Against the Music of the Sufis” [sama'-i sufiyya par i'tiraz].73 An
equally expansive account is found in the shaykh’s lengthy introduction to the

discourses (malfuzat) of the nineteenth-century Chishti master Ghulam
Farid (1844–1901) titled Maqabis al-majalis [The Lessons of the Spiritual
Assemblies].74 Summarizing his own treatment of the subject, Wahid Bakhsh
writes,
While music is a controversial issue in Islam, its benefits in spiritual develop-

ment are of an overwhelming nature. The kind of music and singing which is
prohibited in Islam is of the frivolous and corrupt type whose vulgarity is
unwholesome in any society. The Islamic society, in particular, stands for all-
around purity, chastity and perfection. I have, however, upheld the sanctity of
spiritual music with copious references from the Qur'an, Hadith and sayings of
the Companions of the Prophet, the leaders of the four schools of fiqah [sic],
muhaddithin (the Traditionalists) and the heads of various spiritual orders—
Chishtis, Qadiris, Naqshbandis, Suhrawardis and so forth—in the introductions
to my books.75
Throughout his voluminous writings, Wahid Bakhsh invokes a range of

premodern Sufi authorities to bolster his own defense of sama'. Here again
the famous nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri master Hajji Imdad Allah al-
Muhajir Makki (d. 1899), is especially prominent in Wahid Bakhsh’s imag-
ination. His reputation for theoretical and intellectual rigor—coupled with
deep piety and social activism—mark Hajji Imdad Allah as a prominent
moral exemplar and spiritual guide. Yet even as he invokes his Chishti Sabiri
predecessor, Wahid Bakhsh adds his own distinct voice to the exposition
and defense of sama'. As Ernst and Lawrence illustrate, “The approach of
Capt. Wahid Bakhsh is at once bolder and more ‘rational.’ He explicates
sama' as the culmination of spiritual discipline, which alone can produce
the result of annihilation (fana') in God. It is no longer ancillary; it is
central. It is, moreover, projected as modern because it recognizes the
interior/exterior correspondence of spiritual/physical health that both
Europeans and Americans have too narrowly construed as uni-dimensional
or physical.”76 Despite the differences of style and emphasis, there is clearly
an unbroken trajectory in Chishti discourse. As the living heirs to this
legacy, today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples continue to view sama's credentials
as unassailable.
In both theory and practice, the mahfil-i sama' is best understood as a for-
malized, elaborately structured ritual performance. Chishti Sabiri masters
and disciples view the ritual arena of the musical assembly as a sacralized, lim-
inal space in which the normal structures and logic of everyday social practice
are temporarily suspended.77 Amid the intensity and intimacy of the mahfil-i
sama', music and poetry are transformed into vehicles for heightened spiri-
tual insight—opening up the possibility of a deeper union with the Divine. In
his Urdu discourses, Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah
details the ritual’s prerequisites. Echoing a well-known phrase often attrib-
uted to the early Sufi theorist, Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910), he asserts that
sama’s efficacy is conditioned by three interdependent factors:
There are three requirements for sama': place [makan], time [zaman], and
companions [ikhwan]. Makan means the place where qawwali is performed. It
should not be a location where everyone passes by. Rather it should be a
secluded site. Zaman means that there should be a prescribed time for qawwali
when no other duties are at hand. For example, it should not be time for prayer
or any other obligations that might intervene. Ikhwan means that only people
of taste [ahl-i zauq] should be seated in the qawwali assembly [mahfil], and
only those in search of God [talab-i haqq] ought to listen to the sama'. The
singers [qawwals] are also included under the requirement of ikhwan.78
According to Chishti Sabiris, it is the combination of makan, zaman, and

ikhwan that transforms the musical assembly into a sacred space. The careful
attention to atmosphere and audience, they insist, distinguishes the closed,
private performance of the mahfil-i sama' from the daily, public displays of
qawwali at Sufi shrines throughout Pakistan. Disciples highlight these ele-
ments when comparing sama' with the commercialized qawwali of the global
recording industry as well. Their criticism of popular qawwali reduces mass-
produced music to a form of commercialized entertainment that is often
insensitive to the Sufi tradition. sama', by contrast, constitutes a carefully
choreographed technology for the enrichment of a Sufi adept’s inner, spiri-
tual development. Accessible exclusively to an elite cadre of disciples (murids)
under the supervision of a teaching shaykh, it is always governed by strict rules
of comportment.
The Chishti Sabiri musical assemblies are usually held on the night of a
Sufi saint’s death anniversary, most often within an enclosed ritual space adja-
cent to the tomb. At the annual 'urs of Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi in Karachi,
for example, the ceremony takes place in an enclosed, open-air courtyard
immediately in front of the tomb. In other locations such as Allahabad and
Pakpattan, the silsila maintains a separate indoor room for the occasion in
private compounds near the shrines. Wherever and whenever the mahfil-i
sama' takes place, every dimension of the ritual space and the listening audi-
ence are tightly controlled by the presiding shaykh. With rare exception, only
a select, inner circle of disciples are allowed to participate. During the musi-
cal assembly, disciples gather together in the presence of the spiritual master
in view of the patron saint’s tomb. There they sit in quiet contemplation as
the singers—professional musicians known as qawwals (“reciters”)—perform
poetic verses (kalam), accompanied by the rhythm of hand clapping, drums
(tabla), and the harmonium. Under the proper conditions, murids insist,
sama' is transformed into a powerful form of meditative recollection (zikr).
Under the watchful and discerning eye of the presiding shaykh, participants
are spurred toward mystical insight (hal). At times, some experience states of
ecstasy (wajd).
The physical space of the mahfil-i sama' manifests relationships of power
and authority, both spiritual and temporal. This is clearly reflected in the
seating arrangements of the assembly that mirror the hierarchical social
relations between the leader (shaykh), the performers (qawwals), and the
listening audience (murids). At the annual 'urs in Karachi, for example, the
qawwals sit at the far end of the compound, directly facing Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi’s tomb. As the saint’s living heir, the presiding shaykh is
positioned in the center row to the right of the musicians, facing the direc-
tion of the Ka'ba. In both Pakpattan and Allahabad where the musical
assembly is held in a room adjacent to the shrine, the shaykh sits directly
opposite the performers. Disciples, in turn, form a series of rows behind and
opposite him. The most senior murids position themselves nearest the
shaykh, while others take seats in the front or back of the rows according to
their relative status. While the logistics vary according to the physical land-
scape of different shrines, the logic remains consistent. This spatial layout
places the Sufi master at the very center of the ritual action, even as it con-
fines the singers to the periphery.
Significantly, the mahfil-i sama's ritual space is gendered as well. Female
disciples typically sit together in rows directly behind the shaykh, divided off
from the central space by a thin, white sheet. Though recognized as full
participants in the ceremony, women remain distanced from the sama's rit-
ual action—physically present, but sequestered, silent, and invisible. As we
have seen, this is in sharp contrast to the dynamics of everyday experience
where many women play integral roles in the Chishti Sabiri order’s social
and ritual life. Several female murids, in fact, are renowned as spiritually
advanced mentors with expertise in Sufi ritual practice, including sama'.
Despite the high standing of women in Chishti Sabiri daily affairs, however,
they remain noticeably marginalized within the ritualized confines of the
mahfil-i sama'.
Aware of the controversy surrounding sama', Chishti Sabiri murids are
quick to insist that every dimension of the performance is fully in keeping
with the dictates of shari'a. In their view, the maintenance of ritual etiquette
and decorum (adab) protect and preserve the mahfil-i sama's sanctity. The
words of a senior Pakistani disciple are typical:
In our mahfil-i sama' there is nothing that anyone could object to, even
Wahhabis. We always keep shari'a intact. The women, for example, remain in
pardah. We are in wudu [having performed the ritual ablutions for prayer],
neatly dressed, listening to the recitation of hamd and naat [songs of praise and
blessing] to the Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation. There is noth-
ing at all objectionable in this. Often you feel so moved that you want to shake
your body. There is so much pressure that you just want to move. But you are
not allowed to do this. Here there is not a single utterance.
We are always careful to protect the adab of sama'. The proof is the spiritual
element in all this. The more you watch and hear it, the more you are attracted
to it. It is not like other kinds of music. You can listen to this for years and years
and it always moves you, just as it did the first time you heard it. A prayer
offered in Mecca is ten thousand times greater than namaz done at home. The
same is true for sama'. The presence of the shaykh and the saint make all the
difference. (October 7, 2000, Lahore)
For Chishti Sabiris, the requirements of adab are as essential to Sufi practice
as the ritual prescriptions of formal worship ('ibadat). A meticulous attention
to the nuances of decorum, in fact, is at the very heart of Chishti Sabiri disci-
pleship. To a large extent, an individual’s standing in the community is meas-
ured by her/his knowledge of and adherence to these rules of ritual
etiquette.
Throughout the sama' performance, every effort is made to ensure an
atmosphere of piety and propriety. In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Zauqi Shah out-
lines the ritual’s parameters in detail. His exposition illustrates how adab
impacts every dimension of the ceremony, from the listeners’ dress to their
bodily comportment and physical postures. In Zauqi Shah’s words,
Both the singers and the listeners should arrive clean and well dressed.
Everyone who participates in the musical assembly should perform ritual ablu-
tions. As long as they sit in the assembly, they should maintain etiquette [adab]
and remain seated with crossed legs. During the qawwali, everyone should sit
and make every effort to focus their attention on God. If they are spurred to
inner states of ecstasy, they should focus their attention on the Prophet of God
(God bless him and grant him salvation), or on their own shaykh, or on any saint
of the silsila whose virtues are being mentioned [in the qawwali]. They should
not look around because this only disperses one’s thoughts and disrupts the
other people of the assembly. Whatever gifts they give [for the qawwals] should
be presented in front of the master of the assembly [i.e., the shaykh]. It is against
etiquette to give it directly to the qawwals . . . If it is necessary to renew ablu-
tions, one should immediately exit the assembly, perform the ablutions and
return. Talking, using prayer beads [tasbih] or performing other forms of wor-
ship is against the etiquette of the musical assembly. Of course, those who have
reached perfection are exempt from these rules.
When overcome with ecstasy [hal] a person should remain in control and stay
seated. He should continue to refrain from moving that would disturb the peo-
ple of the assembly. If someone is forced to stand up in ecstasy than everyone
should follow his example and stand up as well. As long as the person in ecstasy
does not sit down, neither should they. People should never try to seat them-
selves up front. However, the leader of the assembly [i.e., the presiding shaykh]
should arrange to have those who have a taste for sama' [arbab-i zauq] sit
in front.
If a novice seeker manages to maintain control when overcome with ecstasy,
his status [maratib] will improve and the spiritual blessings [faizan] will
increase as well. If, however, he does not try to stay in control and instead
begins to leap and jump about when overcome with ecstasy then all progress
stops. When a man becomes intoxicated [mast] after drinking only one cup,
why would should receive more wine? Of course, it is a different matter with
those who have achieved perfection. The character of their ecstasy and rapture
[wajd o hal] is entirely separate.79
Sama's efficacy, Zauqi Shah suggests, presupposes an exacting attention to

the details of its performance. As with daily prayer, listening to music
demands careful preparation. Ritual purity is maintained through ritual
ablutions, the wearing of clean clothes, and the disciplining of the body. With
proper intention and the focused concentration of the mind, the shaykh
notes, disciples open themselves up to spiritual blessings and rarefied states
of consciousness that are inaccessible in everyday experience. Yet the mark of
spiritual attainment is to maintain sobriety and control, even in the face of
spiritual ecstasy. This is only possible, Zauqi Shah insists, if the murid main-
tains an unwavering discipline and adheres to the dictates of decorum.
Enshrined in texts and orally communicated among disciples, the rules of
adab are passed down from generation to generation of Chishti Sabiri disci-
ples. While mediating ritual performance, adab also forms a fundamental part
of the silsila’s historical memory, collective wisdom, and corporate identity.
The most important—if controversial—element of sama' is the recited
lyrics (kalam). Sufis long ago discovered poetic images of love and intoxica-
tion to be powerful catalysts for enhancing states of spiritual ecstasy. Fawa'id
al-Fu'ad, for instance, records Shaykh Nizam ad-Din’s awe at the transfor-
mative power of poetry:
From his [Nizam ad-Din’s] blessed mouth came this pronouncement: “Every
eloquent turn of phrase that one hears causes delight, but the same thought
expressed in prose when cast into verse causes still great delight.” At this point,
I [Hasan Sijzi] interjected: “Is there nothing which touches the heart so deeply
as listening to devotional music (sama')?” “For those who tread this Path desir-
ing the Divine,” replied the master, “the taste which is evoked in them through
sama' resembles a fire set ablaze. If this were not the case, where would one
find eternity (baqa'), and how would one evoke the taste for eternity?”80
For Sufis past and present, kalam is much more than eloquent verse. As the
expression of accomplished spiritual masters, Sufi poetry provides a blueprint for
spiritual development—a “model of” and a “model for” mystical experience.
Contemporary Chishti Sabiris are equally attuned to the aesthetics and
power of kalam. As with zikr, sama' is characterized by a wide-ranging lyrical
repertoire guided by an underlying pattern. In Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Zauqi
Shah links the sequence of kalam with the stages of the Sufi path (suluk). His
commentary offers a nuanced summation of both:
Sama' is a part of suluk. Indeed, it is the essence of suluk. The singers [qawwals]
should arrange the kalam to match the stages of suluk itself. These days the
singers are often ignorant of these matters. For this reason, it is the duty of the
Sufis to inform them of these nuances.
The essence of suluk is this: in the beginning, man is in a state of duality. The
mind of the seeker of truth struggles to overcome this. With the blessings of
mujahada, the signs and secrets of divine unity [tawhid] begin to be revealed
and the seeker traverses the stages of true love. The result is ultimately union
with God. After this, he returns to the state of servitude which is the reward for
permanence in God [baqa' bi Allah].
This very same path should be followed in qawwali as well. According to
etiquette, qawwali should commence with poems in honor of the Prophet
[na't sharif ]. This should be followed by songs in praise of the saints of

the [Chishti Sabiri] order [manqabat]. After that, words of love [should be
sung] so that the fire of separation and division warms the hearts of the seekers,
and the pleasure of the taste and desire for God is increased . . . Having heard
this type of poetry, the seekers immerse themselves in the contemplation of
annihilation [muraqaba-i fana']. This kind of kalam will help them to achieve
effacement in the Divine essence and become overwhelmed with the state of
Divine union.
After annihilation, servitude is restored, and this is the final state. For this
reason, after the recitation of kalam dealing with annihilation and union, the
kalam associated with servitude—the descent after ascension, separation after
union—should be performed . . . The singers should remain attentive to this
arrangement. If, having reached one stage they return to a previous stage,
the seekers heart will shatter. For this reason, once they have reached the stage
of annihilation they must not begin singing about love. Similarly, if the stage of
permanence [baqa'iyat] is achieved, they should not return to annihilation or
na't or manqabat. If after hearing a particular couplet a salik goes into ecstasy
[wajd], they must continue repeating that same couplet until his state has
passed. If this is not kept in mind, he could die under certain circumstances.81
As this lengthy quote illustrates, there is nothing arbitrary about the poetic
repertoire of the mahfil-i sama'. It encapsulates suluk itself, serving in effect
as a lyrical microcosm of the Sufi’s arduous spiritual journey to God. For
Chishti Sabiri adepts, poetry and music are merely a medium for a higher
goal: the inner concentration on the mystical quest. Under the right condi-
tions, they assert, sama' has the power to spur states of heightened con-
sciousness. This power is also potentially dangerous, even destructive. Zauqi
Shah’s final cautionary note invokes the memory of Shaykh Qutb ad-Din
Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1235), the famous thirteenth-century Chishti master who
died in a state of prolonged spiritual rapture while listening to sama'. The
musical assembly, Zauqi Shah suggests, is neither a playground nor a venue
for worldly entertainment. Instead, it is a ritual training ground open exclu-
sively to devotees who are fully committed to the discipline and rigors of the
Sufi path. In the proper context, Chishti Sabiris assert, devotional music
becomes a didactic tool that reveals a depth of spiritual insight and knowl-
edge that no text, library, or scholar could ever hope to communicate.
In practice, the Chishti Sabiri mahfil-i sama' is led by one or two singers
who are supported melodically by a background chorus and several musicians.
Though constrained by the ritual’s formal structure, qawwals are allowed some
limited space for creative freedom and spontaneity. As ethnomusicologist
Regula Burckhardt Qureshi notes, “The ensemble structure and performing
style make possible extended singing, a strongly articulated musical meter, and
a flexible structuring process adapted to the changing spiritual needs of the
sama' listeners.”82 Under the watchful eye of the presiding shaykh, the qawwals
repeat and recombine poetic couplets and individual phrases or words in
response to the reactions of the audience. At times the performers choose the
lyrics and musical cadence; at other moments, the shaykh will call for a specific
poem or encourage the qawwals to speed up (or slow down) the pace. In this
respect, the mahfil-i sama' resembles a form of spiritual jazz—fluid, open, and
responsive to audience feedback and participation.
The singers’ repertoire draws on a diverse range of lyrical poetry commu-
nicated in multiple languages. Qawwals move fluidly between linguistic reg-
isters: from the Persian verses of Jami, Hafiz, and Rumi, to the Punjabi
poetry of Mehr 'Ali Shah and Ghulam Farid, and the classical Hindi of Amir
Khusrau, among others.83 Chishti Sabiris have a particular affinity for Persian
poetry. In the words of a young murid, a disciple of Wahid Bakhsh, “My
shaykh told me that unless you know Persian you cannot be a Sufi! The poetry
in Persian is the essence of kalam” (September 2, 2001, Karachi). A senior
Pakistani disciple explains the rationale behind this preference: “Most kalam
for qawwali is in Farsi. These poems have been written by the saints [awliya'
Allah], and because of their spirituality it effects us too when their kalam is
recited. If I write something, it will not matter. If a wali Allah writes some-
thing, it will have a different effect. Apart from Farsi, you have kalam in
Saraiki, Hindi, Sindhi, and Punjabi. Urdu has not been selected by our saints
for this purpose. In our mahfil-i sama', the qawwals are directed to focus on
Farsi” (September 1, 2001, Karachi).
The qawwals represent just a single node in a vast web of economic net-
works and minimarkets that surround the 'urs pilgrimage and its public rituals.
Within the private, sacralized space of the mahfil-i sama', they play a central if
at times ambiguous role. As the preservers of poetic and musical tradition, the
singers are respected as ritual mediators. As paid service professionals, however,
they are simultaneously (and paradoxically) held in low esteem. During the
mahfil-i sama' the position of the musicians is actually fraught with tension. An
accomplished qawwal is valued—and financially rewarded—for his musical and
poetic talents. Yet a singer’s artistic creativity and social authority are constantly
kept in check by the Sufi shaykh who ultimately controls every dimension of the
sama' assembly. Qureshi provides a lucid summary of this complex dynamic in
her classic study of Sufi musical performance at the shrine of Shaykh Nizam ad-
Din Awliya' in Delhi. In her words,
Issues of spiritual and socio-economic priority, of dominance and submission,

of hierarchical order and individual assertion, of conformity and creativity, are
being negotiated audibly, in the language of music, through a Qawwali per-
formance. Since the Qawwal is the only one who “speaks” this language, he is
in effect charged with being the sole mouthpiece for all this is to be conveyed
in the Qawwali. This is why he “speaks” musically not only for himself, but for
all his listeners, articulating, in structure and dynamic, the multiplicity of rela-
tionships between all participants including himself . . . [Ultimately] the only
way to control the Qawwal’s musical power over his audience is to give his
audience religiously legitimized social and economic power over him. Made
dependent on his audience in a real way, he can then be controlled in perform-
ance through the presence of a strong authority structure and through strict
rules of censure for defying it—both of which are realities facing any Qawwali
performer.84
Within the Chishti Sabiri mahfil-i sama', the presiding shaykh is solely
responsible for the spiritual welfare of his followers. During the perform-
ance, he carefully moderates the actions and reactions of his murids, using
the qawwals to amplify or pacify their responses. The qawwals, in turn, are
tightly controlled. Loud drumming and theatrical gestures are discour-
aged. Similarly, pandering to popular tastes by playing “film qawwali” is
strictly prohibited. Singers who violate these rules are immediately ushered
out of the assembly and not invited to return. Not surprisingly, well-
known local singers are frequently turned away from the gathering alto-
gether. I was told, for instance, that throughout the 1970s Shaykh
Shahidullah Faridi pointedly refused to allow either the Sabri Brothers or
Nusrat Fateh 'Ali Khan to perform at the annual 'urs in Pakpattan
(September 30, 2000, Pakpattan).85 A senior Chishti Sabiri disciple offers
a critique of popular qawwali that I often heard repeated among murids:
“Qawwali is not sama'. With these Nusrat Fateh 'Ali Khan types there is
always lots of talk about wine, and the [drum] beats go up [in intensity].
It is a different taste and they [the qawwals] play to the gallery. We do not
allow them to use loud tabla. They must come to us for the blessings of
our shaykhs and not for the money. They never get much money from us”
(December 15, 2000, Karachi). This is a common lament. While disciples
may respect popular singers for their musical artistry, they are highly criti-
cal of those who commercialize and commodify Sufi music. sama', Chishti
Sabiris insist, is not a form of entertainment. It is a powerful spiritual cat-
alyst that should be used only in the presence of an accomplished spiritual
master who understands its power. Removing sama' from its proper ritual
setting, disciples argue, undermines the music’s spiritual efficacy and
dilutes its transformative power.
In interviews, murids often commented on the pervasive decline in stan-
dards among today’s qawwals. Most singers, they claim, are no longer prop-
erly trained in the nuances of ritual etiquette and the intricacies of kalam. In
order to insure that adab is maintained, therefore, several senior Chishti
Sabiri murids assist the shaykh in controlling the mahfil-i sama', selecting
and guiding the qawwals’ performance. One of these select disciples explains
his role:
We know the qawwals and they know us. And having been in the gracious com-
pany of our masha'ikh, we also have a little more knowledge than the novices
about what sort of kalam should be recited and the proper order. This is wor-
ship ('ibadat), it is not a social function. Sometimes the qawwals have to be told
[what to recite]. There are not many singers left who know that order, and
maintain that order. There are various reasons for this. There is a lack of knowl-
edge and there is greed. The qawwals only perform for money. They only want
to play the songs that people will pay money to hear. That is why the selection
of qawwali must be done by the Sufi masters (masha'ikh) themselves. They
alone decide whose name should be called [i.e., what poet should be recited].
By screening the selection of singers and carefully monitoring their

performance, Chishti Sabiris effectively maintain a monopoly as the gate-
keepers of tradition.
According to disciples, under the proper conditions sama' is transformed
into a powerful vehicle for states of spiritual insight that no other ritual prac-
tice can equal. This is true, they note, even if the recited lyrics are not under-
stood, as is often the case. According to a senior Malaysian disciple, “The
kalam is central, it brings you to Allah. I do not understand much of the
qawwali, but there is still such a blessing of the masha'ikh who are present
there. Even when you do not understand, you keep concentrating on the
oneness of Allah. Of course, if you know the meaning of the qawwali your
heart cries out even more” (October 3, 2001, Kuala Lumpur). At times,
Pakistani disciples struggle with the lyrics as well. The rapidly shifting lin-
guistic registers, coupled with the often poor pronunciation of novice
qawwals, frequently creates translation problems. Nonetheless, disciples
assert that the transformative impact of sama' ultimately transcends the lim-
its of language. In the words of a senior Pakistani disciple,
You may hear the same kalam elsewhere, but you will not have the same feel-
ing. Kalam makes it easier for you to understand the spiritual feelings you
receive. You decipher it better. Kalam is a vehicle, even when you may not
understand it. The awliya' Allah frequently explain this by the example of a
blind man and a man with vision, sitting together in the sun. The blind man
does not see the sun, but he can sense the warmth of the sun, just as a man with
eyes. Both will get the same warmth of the sun, without any difference.
Remarkably, Chishti Sabiri murids claim that even physical distance does
not diminish the impact of sama'. When they are unable to travel to Pakistan
for the annual cycle of 'urs celebrations, for example, Malaysian disciples fre-
quently commemorate the occasion on the opposite side of the Indian
Ocean. During the days of the 'urs, they gather together in private homes in
Kuala Lumpur. There they perform communal prayers and, most intrigu-
ingly, listen to taped recordings of sama'. Despite the medium, disciples insist
that the spiritual blessings (faizan) at these gatherings is extremely intense.
In the words of a senior female murid, “Somebody asked our shaykh, ‘What
is the difference between attending 'urs at the mazar proper and [celebrat-
ing] 'urs here in Kuala Lumpur?’ He replied, ‘In both places you receive
faizan, blessings come down. But the blessings you get at the mazar itself
you do not receive at your house. It is much stronger at the mazar because
the Shaykh intensifies it.’ It is true. We receive a lot of faizan when we have
our 'urs here. We play qawwali on the tape cassette. It is fantastic!”
(September 30, 2001, Kuala Lumpur). Even though taped recordings allow
disciples to participate in the ritual performance in absentia, murids insist that
nothing compares to the direct, unmediated, communal experience of the
mahfil-i sama'. It is the intimacy and intensity of this experience that cements
the annual cycle of 'urs celebrations as a central fixture of the Chishti Sabiri
ritual calendar.
In a letter written to a female disciple, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
recalls his own experience at the Muharram 'urs of Baba Farid in Pakpattan
in 1990:
I was terribly tired, especially after the exhaustion of a full week of spiritual
exercises (mujahada) at the shrine (mazar) comprising three strenuous hours
in the morning from 8 am until 11 am, and three hours in the evening, from 5
to 8 pm. On the night of the 'urs the qawwals sang special Persian and Hindi
ghazals for our silsila people because they know what our taste is. On the arrival
of the Diwan Sahib, the qawwali reverted to mob entertainment. During mob
qawwali we fixed our attention on the saint himself who made up for all the
deficiency. The three hour evening sama' session was filled with ancient Hindi
songs of Amir Khusrau and the Persian songs of Hazrat Baba Farid himself.
This was very intoxicating and full of ecstasies.86
This account captures something of the heightened atmosphere that

draws Chishti Sabiri murids to the annual 'urs celebrations, year after year. It
also points to the unrivaled intensity and transformative power of sama'. For
Sufi adepts committed to the rigors of the path, the musical assembly offers a
tactile, sensual, and immediate source of knowledge—a passageway to higher
states of insight and awareness. At the same time, its structured performance
cements a deep sense of social solidarity, shared memory, and communal
identity among the select group of listeners. As the paradigmatic ritual prac-
tice of the Chishti Sufi order, the mahfil-i sama' plays a central role in link-
ing today’s disciples to each other and to their spiritual ancestors.
Conclusion
Ritual performance is the lifeblood of the Chishti Sabiri order.
Contemporary disciples seek spiritual truth in the details of ritual practice. It
is through the visceral experience of ritual that the Sufi adept learns to culti-
vate a bodily habitus in which Muslim virtue is embodied and enacted.
Through dreams and dream interpretation, the daily rituals of remembrance,
and pilgrimage networks, Chishti Sabiris struggle to remake themselves.
They describe this quest as a spiritual jihad. For these twenty-first-century
Sufis, spiritual wisdom is not found in books. It is possible only through
internal combat—a ceaseless striving against one’s beastly nature and an
aggressive pushing of personal boundaries. Chishti Sabiris view Sufism as a
spiritual meritocracy. In this pedagogical system, spiritual knowledge and
authority are measured by the intensity of a Sufi’s piety, the rigor of a Sufi’s
practice, and the depth of Sufi’s personal experiences. On the Sufi path,
murids assert, there are no shortcuts. Knowledge must be earned through
the discipline, sacrifice, and ceaseless striving of ritual work.
Although it is communicated and experienced in community, suluk is an
intensely personal experience. A senior Pakistani disciple explained this
dynamic through a simple technological metaphor:
“Chishti Sabiri” is our lineage, our family name. It is like an airplane.

Passengers buy tickets, check in their luggage, take their seats, and fly. Then
they collect their luggage and leave. [On the Sufi path] it is natural that you will
develop relationships and even love for your fellow murids, but that is not the
real purpose. There is no planned group work as such. It is all between the
shaykh and the murid. The most important part of suluk is what you do at
home, every day and every night. The only objective is the cleaning of the heart
in the company of the shaykh. (April 25, 2001, Lahore)
This is a revealing statement about Chishti Sabiri identity, both individual

and collective. It emphasizes the centrality of personal struggle and the
imperative for individual effort in Sufi ritual practice. Above all, it reminds us
that Sufi pedagogy remains firmly grounded on the intimate, face-to-face
interaction between the novice seeker and the teaching shaykh. Yet even when
disciples pursue devotions in isolation within the privacy of their own homes,
their experiences are authorized and authenticated by the teaching shaykh and
the horizontal network of murids. The individual Sufi self, in other words, is
ultimately molded within the moral community of the silsila.
Today’s Chishti Sabiris negotiate a constant balance between their daily
and devotional lives. Murids integrate ritual practice into their complex
worldly lives through a combination of self-discipline and vigilant time man-
agement. They mark these strategies of accommodation as something new,
even as they insist that the essential elements of the Sufi path remain
unchanged. Like their premodern predecessors, contemporary murids are
deeply attuned to spiritual genealogy and sacred history. They tell stories
about past shaykhs, continuously revisiting the words and deeds of the saints
and spiritual masters of their shared tradition. Many attend weekly halqa-i
zikr sessions and regularly visit local shrines in groups for muraqaba. Four
times a year, disciples travel and live together en masse for short but intensive
periods of spiritual immersion, creating a serial khanaqah during the annual
'urs pilgrimages. In every context, the silsila maintains strict borders and rit-
ual boundaries. There is, in fact, a pervasive sense of shared experience and a
collective identity that unites individual disciples. In twenty-first-century
Pakistan and Malaysia, a new generation of Chishti Sabiris perpetuates a nexus
of embodied ritual practices and communal networks that links them to a
sacred Indo-Muslim past, even as it continues to sacralize the living present.
Conclusions
T he Pakpattan tragedy of April 1, 2001 quickly receded from Pakistan’s

media spotlight. Over time, the story was eclipsed by a parade of cataclysmic
events that consumed public discourse: the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S.-led
attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and the
local repercussions of the “war on terror,” the devastation of the South Asian
earthquake of 2005, and the continued instability of Pakistan’s domestic pol-
itics. Yet for the families of those who perished amid the confusion and chaos
of that night at the shrine of the renowned Chishti Sufi saint, Baba Farid ad-
Din Ganj-i Shakkar, April 1, 2001 is a date that will never be forgotten. The
same is true for Chishti Sabiri disciples who still mourn the loss of a promis-
ing young boy among their ranks—the great-grandson of the twentieth-
century Chishti Sabiri master Shaykh Muhammad Zauqi Shah. By interpret-
ing the sudden and violent loss of life as a ritual sacrifice, however, Chishti
Sabiris found a deeper sense of meaning amid their pain. This counternarra-
tive consecrated their suffering as a pious act of acquiescence to an
inscrutable but transcendent expression of Divine will. In keeping with tradi-
tion, Chishti Sabiris continue to make the annual pilgrimage for the
Muharram 'urs at Pakpattan, but today the journey carries an added signifi-
cance. Murids now commemorate the “marriage” ('urs) of both the saint and
the young boy with the God. In both cases, death has been transformed into
martyrdom.
The tragedy at Pakpattan frames this book because it illuminates the trans-
formative power of faith for the community of contemporary Chishti Sabiris
who live within a sacralized universe. The silsila’s narrative of redemptive suf-
fering diverges sharply from the rationalist interpretation of the Pakistani
state. It is also an interpretation that academic discourse can analyze, dissect,
and explain away but never fully comprehend. This study, by contrast, takes
the Sufi spiritual quest and the worldview that it engenders seriously. On a
more mundane level, my analysis contextualizes the Pakpattan tragedy in the
broader contestation over the roots of Islamic authority and the public
debates over the authenticity of Sufism in today’s Pakistan and Malaysia.
Since Partition and political independence sixty years ago, Pakistan has
struggled to define the contours of citizenship and Islamic identity. I argue,
however, that the state’s control of Sufi tradition—its worldview, its sacred
spaces, its spiritual leaders—has never been totalizing or hegemonic. This
book illustrates how contemporary Chishti Sabiri Sufi identity is constructed
through discourse and constituted through ritual practice, beyond the gaze
of the nation and outside the machinery of the state. Today’s Chishti Sabiris
respond directly to the state’s ideology and institutions while adapting their
own public image and private practices to accommodate change. In doing so,
I argue, they demonstrate that Sufi identity is capacious, broader, and deeper
than the parochial constructions of religious nationalism. In the context of
late colonial India and postcolonial Pakistan, Chishti Sabiris have articulated
an alternative worldview that places Sufi identity and Sufi ritual practices at
the very center of Islamic orthodoxy and Pakistani national identity. In my
view, today’s Chishti Sabiri order embraces an alternative modernity that
reconfigures the ideology and institutions of the state in multiple ways:
● Expanding the limited boundaries of the geopolitical map, Chishti Sabiris

mark an alternative geography that delineates an expansive Indo-Muslim
sacred landscape centered on a constellation of Sufi shrines.
● Revising the official narrative of Pakistan’s sixty-year history, Chishti
Sabiris trace an alternative history through a spiritual genealogy (silsila)
that directly links the current generation of disciples with their Sufi prede-
cessors and, ultimately, with the Prophet Muhammad.
● Challenging narrow constructions of Pakistani national identity, Chishti
Sabiris perpetuate an alternative community rooted in the silsila’s broad
teaching network.
● Reframing Pakistan’s identity as an Islamic republic, Chishti Sabiris
embrace an alternative authority that is rooted in an experiential knowl-
edge acquired through the discipline of Sufi ritual practice.
In an effort to track these multiple vectors, this book has explored the
contemporary Chishti Sabiri order from various perspectives. Combing the
philological methods of Islamic Studies with the theory and methodology of
Cultural Anthropology, I have examined both texts and contexts. In doing
so, my analysis reveals that twenty-first-century Chishti Sabiri identity is com-
plex, fluid, and multifaceted. It is inscribed in texts, mediated through inter-
personal networks, transmitted via the intimate master-disciple relationship,
and experienced through ritual practice.
As we have seen, the sacred biographies of Muhammad Zauqi Shah,
Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani reflect the traditional
paradigm—the hagiographical habitus—of Indo-Muslim sainthood. Despite
their diverse backgrounds and life experiences, these twentieth-century Sufi
exemplars are each remembered as pious, disciplined, and charismatic teach-
ers. Chishti Sabiri hagiographies characterize Zauqi Shah and Wahid Bakhsh
as Sufi masters who were deeply immersed in spiritual life and, at the same
time, actively engaged with the social and political issues of their times. As
ideologues and social commentators, these Pakistani shaykhs articulated a
shari'a-minded, socially engaged Sufism, firmly grounded in tradition but
open to change. Their approach echoes the activist ethos of their nineteenth-
century Chishti Sabiri predecessors, Hajji Imdad Allah al-Muhajir Makki and
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi—the spiritual founders of Deoband. Shahidullah
Conclusions 229
Faridi, by contrast, is memorialized in a different manner. As an Englishman

and a convert, he stands as a complex figure whose sacred biography marks
Sufism as a spiritual meritocracy. Together, the shaykhs’ legacy sets the stan-
dard for a new generation of Chishti Sabiri disciples who combine the rigors
of Sufi discipline with a practical, utilitarian approach to the mundane world
of everyday experience.
Throughout their voluminous literary corpus, Muhammad Zauqi Shah,
Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani responded directly to the
momentous social, cultural, and political changes spurred by Partition. The
shaykhs did not shy away from the realm of politics. Their writings, however,
frame politics in terms of religion. As writers and public ideologues, they each
defended the orthodoxy of Sufism in Pakistan’s contested public sphere. In
an eclectic range of essays, articles, and books, they valorized the doctrinal
teachings and ritual practices at the core of Chishti Sabiri identity as a
bulwark against the tradition’s critics and a panacea for the nation’s wide-
spread social malaise. In effect, the shaykhs made a case for a Pakistani identity
that is simultaneously modern, Muslim, and mystic. Adopting the idioms of
modernity—the language and logic of science, rationalism, and the market—
they used the instruments of mass media to articulate and amplify this
message to a broad national and international audience.
Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Shahidullah Faridi, and Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani were also ardent Pakistani nationalists. From their writings it is clear
that they envisioned Pakistan as a tabula rasa, a new and welcoming space for
South Asian Muslims to resurrect the ideals of the Prophet’s Medina. Their
imaginings of the nation portray Sufi masters as the true heirs to the Prophet
and, by extension, the true spiritual founders of Pakistan. Significantly, their
vision of citizenship echoes the logic and structure of the Sufi master-disciple
relationship. It equates the nation with a moral community grounded on
knowledge and piety and envisions a social order mediated by the Sufi rules
of etiquette and decorum (adab). This idealized vision of an Islamic state
rooted in Sufi tradition made the creation of Pakistan much more palatable
to these Chishti Sabiri shaykhs than it was for many of their 'ulama counter-
parts who resisted Partition. In effect, the shaykhs’ alternative narrative of the
nation frames Pakistan—“The Land of the Pure”—as a utopian promised
land for the global Muslim umma.
While charting Chishti Sabiri formations of the nation, I have also argued
that the silsila’s public, political dimensions reveal only half the story. Above
all, Sufism remains a personal spiritual quest. At its core, the contemporary
Chishti Sabiri order is a moral community that aims to reconstitute the Sufi
disciple through its networks of knowledge and spiritual pedagogy. Chishti
Sabiri ritual practice (suluk) begins with a choice. In the pursuit of knowl-
edge, the Sufi adept must willfully submit to the power and authority of a
spiritual master. As the embodiment of sunna, the shaykh serves as the living
conduit to Islam’s sacred past. In this system, Chishti Sabiri doctrine is inte-
riorized and actualized via a nexus of ritual practices. Drawing on the words
of contemporary murids in Pakistan and Malaysia, I examined three distinct
ritual complexes: dreams and dream interpretation; rituals of remembrance

(prayer, zikr, and muraqaba); and the annual pilgrimage networks and musi-
cal assemblies at Sufi shrines ('urs and sama'). In Sufi ritual, the body serves
as a medium for knowledge and a tool for self-transformation. By adhering to
a disciplined routine of ritual performance, the Sufi disciple forges a new
bodily habitus, transforming the acculturated, socialized self into a sacralized,
moral self. While the Chishti Sabiri disciple’s progress along the path ulti-
mately rests on individual action and personal responsibility, the Sufi subject
is molded within the community of the silsila. Through companionship with
the spiritual master and the community of fellow disciples, the murid learns
to navigate the arduous inner journey of the Sufi path.
As a case study of living Sufism in practice, this study demonstrates that
Chishti Sabiri silsila is both paradigmatic and protean. In both public and pri-
vate spaces, today’s Chishti Sabiris recognize the imperative for reform, the
pressing need to respond to changing times and adapt to new environments.
The reconfiguration of ritual space by new geopolitical boundaries is only the
most obvious example of the altered political and spiritual landscape of post-
colonial Pakistan and Malaysia. For individual disciples, the contingencies of
modern, urban life have also forced a reassessment of how best to balance the
necessities of the practical, lived-in world (dunya) with the demands of spiri-
tual discipline. The increased demands of the workplace, the imperative for
mobility and travel, and the pervasive ambiguity and anxiety exacerbated by
social, political, and economic instability—all these elements have forced a
rethinking of the meaning and methods of contemporary Sufi praxis. In
response, Chishti Sabiris have altered the frequency and location of their
ritual practices in order to accommodate the Sufi path to contemporary
ground-level realities.
Despite all these myriad changes, however, there remains a fundamental
continuity to Chishti Sabiri identity. The technologies of bodily discipline, the
interpretive frameworks of selfhood, and the rules of Sufi decorum remain very
much intact. In this sense, I argue, the silsila remains true to its historical,
genealogical, ontological, epistemic, and heuristic foundations. At the dawn of
the twenty-first century, Chishti Sabiri Sufism is imagined and inscribed anew
in texts, even as it is embodied and performed in ritual contexts.
N tes
Intr ducti n: Mapping the Chishti

Sabiri Sufi Order
1. For an overview of Sufi history and practice, see especially Carl W. Ernst, The
Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shambhala Press, 1997); Annemarie
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1975).
2. For a comprehensive overview of the Chishti order, see Carl W. Ernst and
Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and
Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). The definitive work on the
Chishtiyya is Khaliq Ahmad Nizami’s Urdu magnum opus: Tarikh-i mashayikh-i
Chisht [The History of the Chishti Sufi Masters] (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyyat-i
Delli, 1980/1985). See also Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, “Chishtiyya,” in
Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965), 11: 50–56.
3. On the history of Sufism in South Asia, see especially Schimmel, Mystical
Dimensions of Islam, 370–402, where the author provides a masterful survey of
the Sufi contributions to Indo-Muslim culture and the development of regional
literary and, in particular, poetic traditions. See also the two-volume work by
Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India (Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers, 1975, 1983/1992).
4. The most comprehensive overview of the history and legacy of the Deoband
madrasa remains Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India:
Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
5. On the politics and polemics of contemporary Sufism, see Ernst, The
Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 199–228.
6. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of
Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 3.
7. Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1996), 37. For a broad discussion of the construction of “tra-
dition” in Muslim discourse, see in particular Chapter Two, “The Invention of
Tradition in Muslim Politics,” 22–45.
8. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern
Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), xix.
9. On the connections between modernity and religion, see, e.g., Arjun Appadurai,
Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Gustavo Benavides, “Modernity,” in
Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1998), 186–204; Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern
World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). In the specific context of
Islam, see also Armando Salvatore, Islam and the Political Discourse of
Modernity (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1997).
232 N tes
10. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and

Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 4.
11. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 13 (emphasis is in the original).
12. Timothy Mitchell, “Introduction,” in Questions of Modernity, ed. Timothy
Mitchell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), xxvi.
13. Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the
Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 17.
14. Jonah Blank, Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the
Daudi Bohras (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 286.
15. Katherine P. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 4.
16. See, e.g., Linda Alcoff, “The Problem of Speaking for Others,” Cultural
Critique, No. 20 (Winter 1991–1992): 5–32. See also the collection of essays
in Russell T. McCutcheon, ed., The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of
Religion: A Reader (New York: Cassell, 1999); James Clifford and George E.
Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
17. Thomas A. Tweed, “On Moving Across: Translocative Religion and the
Interpreter’s Position,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 70,
No. 2 (June 2002): 260. Tweed’s nuanced theoretical model emerges from
his work among Cuban-American Catholic immigrants.
18. Kirin Narayan, Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu
Religious Teaching (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 62.
19. Tweed, “On Moving Across,” 270–271.
20. Carl W. Ernst, “Preface to the Second Edition,” in Eternal Garden: Mysticism,
History and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2004), xi–xviii. On the Orientalist “discovery” of Sufism, see
also Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 1–18.
21. One of the more ambitious (and influential) historical studies of Sufism comes
from J. Spencer Trimingham, a specialist in the history of Islam in Africa.
Trimingham’s book, The Sufi Orders in Islam (London: Oxford University
Press, 1971), posits a threefold theory of Sufism’s historical devolution. For a
trenchant critique of this model, see Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love,
11–12.
22. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 200.
23. For a concise overview of these two interpretive paradigms, see John R.
Bowen, Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 4–8. See also Vincent J.
Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1998), xl.
24. See, e.g., the essays in Pnina Werbner and Helene Basu, eds., Embodying
Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults
(London: Routledge, 1998).
25. The term “discursive tradition” is borrowed from anthropologist Talal Asad.
See Talal Asad, “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam,” in Occasional Paper
Series, by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, March 1986), 14.
26. Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 140.
N tes 233
27. For a critical review of the literature of South Asian Sufism, see Ernst, “Preface
to the Second Edition,” xi–xviii. See also David Gilmartin and Bruce B.
Lawrence, “Introduction,” in Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious
Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 1–20; Marc Gaborieau,
“Introduction to the New Edition,” in Muslim Shrines in India: Their
Character, History and Significance, ed. Christian W. Troll (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1989), v–xxiv.
28. Pnina Werbner, Pilgrims of Love: The Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003). I offer a detailed review of
this book in the Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 63, No. 4 (November 2004):
1187–1189.
29. Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and
the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1998).
30. On the Chishti Sabiri order, see Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love,
118–127, 130–140.
Chapter 1 Sufism and the P litics f

Islamic Identity
1. A version of this chapter was published as an article: “Faqir or Faker?: The
Pakpattan Tragedy and the Politics of Sufism in Pakistan,” Religion 36
(2006): 29–47.
2. Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, 6. For a trenchant critique of
Casanova’s arguments, see Asad, Formations of the Secular, Chapter Eight,
“Secularism, Nation-State, Religion,” 181–201.
3. For perspectives on the public and private spheres in Muslim societies, see the
essays in The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, ed. Miriam Hoexter, Shmuel N.
Eisenstadt, and Nehemia Levtzion (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2002), 1–8. On contemporary debates of the Islamic public sphere, see also
Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, “Redefining Muslim Publics,” in New
Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F. Eickelman
and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 1–18.
4. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 67. On the origins and development of the
Pakistani state, see also Ayesha Jalal, The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of
Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990).
5. For a thorough examination of the Taliban and the rise of the militant Islam
within the complex geopolitics of Central Asia, see the recent works by
Ahmed Rashid: Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2000); Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central
Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). On the Taliban and its rela-
tionship to sectarian Deobandi groups in Pakistan, see Zaman, The Ulama in
Contemporary Islam, 136–143.
6. The MMA comprises six diverse religious parties—the Jama'at-i Islami; two
factions of the Deobandi Jamiat 'Ulama-i Islam; the Barelwi party, the
Jamiat 'Ulama-i Pakistan; a small Wahhabi group, the Jamiat Ahl-i Hadith;
and a Shi'a group, the Islami Tehrik Pakistan. See Andrew Holden,
“Pakistan’s Religious Parties: A Threat to Musharraf ’s Policies?” Central
234 N tes
Asia-Caucasus Analyst (Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, November 6,

2002). On the regime of General Musharraf and the landscape of post-9/11
Pakistan, see Ahmed Rashid, “Pakistan on the Edge,” New York Review of
Books, October 10, 2002, 36–40; Isabel Hilton, “The General in His
Labyrinth: Where Will Pervez Musharraf Lead His Country?” New Yorker,
August 12, 2002, 42–55.
7. Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State
Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 13. On the Islamization of
politics in Pakistan, see also Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam,
Chapter Four, “Conceptions of the Islamic State,” 88–110.
8. For detailed cross-cultural and historical studies on the polemics over Sufism in
various Islamic societies, see the essays in Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke,
eds., Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and
Polemics (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999). For a more focused study of the debates
over Sufism in the context of modernity and colonialism, see Elizabeth
Sirriyeh, Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defence, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism
in the Modern World (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999).
9. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, xiii.
10. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 49. For a more detailed examination of the British
policy toward local Sufi institutions and exemplars in the Punjab, see Sarah F. D.
Ansari, Sufi Saints and State Power: The Pirs of Sind, 1843–1947 (Lahore:
Vanguard Books, 1992); David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the
Making of Pakistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 39–72,
205–224.
11. David Gilmartin, “Shrines, Succession, and Sources of Moral Authority,” in
Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed.
Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 231.
12. Katherine P. Ewing, “The Politics of Sufism: Redefining the Saints of
Pakistan,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XLII, No. 2 (February 1983): 253.
See also Saifur Rahman Sherani, “Ulema and Pir in the Politics of Pakistan,”
in Economy and Culture in Pakistan: Migrants and Cities in a Muslim Society,
ed. Hastings Donnan and Pnina Werbner (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1991), 216–246.
13. Nasr, Islamic Leviathan, 62–63.
14. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 43–44.
15. Ibid., 45.
16. Richard M. Eaton, “Court of Man, Court of God,” Contributions to Asian
Studies, Vol. XII (1982): 58. See also Richard M. Eaton, “The Political and
Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,” in Moral Conduct and
Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 44–61; Gilmartin, “Shrines,
Succession, and Sources of Moral Authority,” 222.
17. On the life and legacy of Baba Farid, see Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, The Life and
Times of Shaikh Farid-ud Din Ganj-i Shakar (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli,
1973).
18. Lieutenant F. Mackeson, “Journal of Captain C.M. Wade’s Voyage from
Lodiana to Mithankot by the River Satlaj on His Mission to Lahore and
Bahawalpur in 1832–1833,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. 6
(1837): 192; quoted in Eaton, “Court of Man, Court of God,” 56.
N tes 235
19. Tahir Jehangir, “Carnage in Pakpattan,” Friday Times, April 13–19, 2001,
14–15.
20. The scope and scale of the tragedy of 2001 seem to be unprecedented in
Pakpattan’s seven-hundred-year history. Given the massive crowds that attend
the shrine’s annual 'urs commemoration, however, accidents are not uncom-
mon. As Miles Irving noted in 1911, “Some thirty years ago there was an
unfortunate occasion on which several lives were lost by the crush of the Door
of Paradise, and before British rule, it is said, this was of yearly occurrence.” See
Miles Irving, “The Shrine of Baba Farid Shakarganj at Pakpattan,” Journal of
the Panjab Historical Society (Lahore), Vol. 1, No. 1 (1911): 70; reprinted in
Punjab Past and Present, Vol. 7, No. 2 (October 1973): 412. I am grateful to
Professor David Gilmartin for providing me with this historical reference.
21. According to the article, the Diwan had delayed the ceremonies while arguing
with the representatives of the Awqaf Department, insisting that the shrine
should be paid an annuity of 1,500,000 rupees rather than the 150,000
rupees they were promised. See Jang, Monday, April 2, 2001, 1.
22. Quoted in Awais Ibrahim, “Who Locked the Door at Shrine?” Nation,
Wednesday, April 4, 2001, 9.
23. Werbner and Basu, eds., Embodying Charisma, 15.
24. Muhammad Haroon, “Tragedy at the Wedding Anniversary,” unpublished
article, 2.
25. Ibid., 3.
26. On faizan and its connection to Sufi doctrine and ritual practice, see Buehler,
Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 117–118.
27. Michael S. Roth and Charles G. Salas, “Introduction,” in Disturbing
Remains: Memory, History and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, ed. Michael S.
Roth and Charles G. Salas (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001), 3.
28. Excerpt from a personal letter transcribed during an interview: October 6,
2001, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
29. Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 75.
30. For an overview of Sufism in the context of the revivalist movements in the
colonial era, see Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, Chapter Eight,
“Mediational Sufism and Revivalist Currents in British Colonial India,”
168–189. On the Tablighi Jama'at, see the articles in Muhammad Khalid
Masud, ed., Travellers in Faith: Studies of the Tablighi Jama'at as a
Transnational Islamic Movement for Faith Renewal (Leiden: Brill, 2000). See
also Barbara Daly Metcalf, “Nationalism, Modernity, and Muslim Identity in
India before 1947,” in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia,
ed. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1999), 129–143.
31. For a comprehensive overview of the history and legacy of the Deoband
madrasa, see Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India. On Hajji Imdad Allah,
see especially Scott A. Kugle, “The Heart of Ritual Is the Body: Anatomy of
an Islamic Devotional Manual of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Ritual
Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2003): 42–60.
32. On the Barelwi movement, see Usha Sanyal, Devotional Islam and Politics in
British India: Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and His Movement, 1870–1920
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
236 N tes
Chapter 2 Muslim, Mystic, and M dern:

Three Twentieth-Century Sufi Masters
1. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Muqaddama, in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, ed. Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya, 1958/1983), 36–37.
2. In transliterating the shaykhs’ names, I have followed the precedent estab-
lished by the Chishti Sabiri order’s English publications: Zauqi, e.g., with a
“z” rather than a “dh”; and “Shahidullah” as opposed to “Shahid Allah.”
3. Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the
Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 97. Scholarship on
medieval Christian sainthood offers important theoretical and methodological
insights for a study of Muslim sainthood. See, e.g., Peter Brown, Authority
and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Peter Brown, Society and
the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982);
Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin
Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Lynda L. Coon,
Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Pierre Delooz,
“Towards a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic
Church,” in Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and
History, ed. Stephen Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),
189–216; Aviad M. Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints
and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1992); Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps, eds., The
Biographical Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion (The
Hague: Mouton Press, 1976).
4. The idea of habitus is borrowed from Pierre Bourdieu. See Pierre Bourdieu,
The Logic of Practice, translated by Richard Nice (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, 1990), 52. For a trenchant critique of habitus, see also
Thomas J. Csordas, “Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology,” Ethos,
Vol. 18, No. 1 (March 1990): 10–12.
5. Cornell, Realm of the Saint, xviii.
6. Amir Hasan Sijzi, Morals for the Heart (Fawa'id al-Fu'ad): Conversations of
Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya Recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi, translated and
annotated by Bruce B. Lawrence (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 95.
7. Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the
Doctrine of Ibn 'Arabi (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993), 22. For a
discussion of walaya in Ibn Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makkiyya, see also the article
by Souad Hakim, “The Way of Walaya (Sainthood or Friendship of God),”
Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. XVIII (1995): 23–40.
8. Cornell, Realm of the Saint, xviii.
9. Ibid., xix.
10. Ibid., 273.
11. Bruce B. Lawrence, “Biography and the 17th Century Qadiriya of North
India,” in Islam and Indian Regions, ed. Anna Libera Dallapiccola and
Stephanie Zingel-Ave Lallemant (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993), 399.
12. Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Chishtiya of Sultanate India: A Case Study of
Biographical Complexities in South Asian Islam,” in Charisma and Sacred
Biography, ed. Michael A. Williams, Journal of the American Academy of
N tes 237
Religion Thematic Studies, Vol. XLVIII, Nos. 3 and 4 (1982), 53. See also
Bruce B. Lawrence, “An Indo-Persian Perspective on the Significance of the
Early Persian Sufi Master,” paper delivered at a conference on Early Persian
Sufism (George Washington University, Washington, DC, 1992), 2.
13. The definitive work of the Prophet Muhammad’s life and legacy remains
Annemarie Schimmel’s classic study: And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The
Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1985). See also Earle H. Waugh, “The Popular Muhammad:
Models in the Interpretation of an Islamic Paradigm,” in Approaches to Islam
in Religious Studies, ed. Richard C. Martin (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1985).
14. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Malfuzat, in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, ed. Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya, 1958/1983), 403. On the
relationship between sainthood and prophecy, see also Ernst, The Shambhala
Guide to Sufism, 45–63.
15. On the mir'aj as a model for Sufi doctrine and practice, see Earle H. Waugh,
“Following the Beloved: Muhammad as Model in the Sufi Tradition,” in The
Biographical Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion, ed.
Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps (The Hague: Mouton Press, 1976),
64–79. For an examination of early mir'aj narratives, see also Frederick
Stephen Colby, “Constructing an Islamic Ascension Narrative: The Interplay
of Official and Popular Culture in Pseudo-Ibn 'Abbas,” unpublished doctoral
dissertation (Duke University, 2002).
16. Sijzi, Morals for the Heart, 81.
17. Carl W. Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South
Asian Sufi Center (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), 63.
For a detailed chronicling of the production, dissemination and impact of
malfuzat texts in pre-Mughal Indian Sufism, see Bruce B. Lawrence’s mono-
graph, Notes from a Distant Flute: The Extant Literature of Pre-Mughal
Indian Sufism (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978).
18. Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, “Introduction,” in Sijzi, Morals for the Heart, 5.
19. Lawrence, “The Chishtiya of Sultanate India,” 52.
20. Carl Ernst and Bruce Lawrence employ this archetypal model in a brief
examination of the life of Muhammad Zauqi Shah in their monograph, Sufi
Martyrs of Love, 81–83, 123–127. Their analysis, however, focuses largely
on a single source: the short biography by Sayyid Sharif al-Hasan, Sirat-i
Zauqi, in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, compiled by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
(Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya, 1958/1983). Furthermore, their study does
not include a detailed survey of either Shahidullah Faridi or Wahid Bakhsh
Sial Rabbani.
21. Rabbani, Muqaddama, 35–84.
22. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 429–504.
23. Shahidullah Faridi, Malfuzat, in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, compiled by Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya, 1958/1983), 85–134.
24. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 135–426, 507–827. Partial English translations of both
Sirat-i Zauqi and Shahidullah Faridi’s Malfuzat were published in a special
issue of the order’s English language journal dedicated to Zauqi Shah. See
Tehzeeb un-Nisa Aziz and Mansoor Ahmad Hashmi, eds., The Sufi Path
(Book 13) (Islamabad: Association of Spiritual Training, Pakistan, 1995). In
this chapter, all translations from the original Urdu texts are my own.
238 N tes
25. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya,
1951/1993).
26. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 478. Zauqi Shah’s complete family genealogy is doc-
umented on pages 473–477.
27. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 732.
28. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 480.
29. Ibid., 480. On Hajji Imdad Allah, see Kugle, “The Heart of Ritual Is the
Body,” 42–60. See also Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 118–121.
30. al-Hasan, Siraqt-i Zauqi.
31. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 125. For details on the history and
curriculum at Aligarh as well as the educational philosophy of its founder, Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, see David S. Lelyveld, Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim
Solidarity in British India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
32. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 377–378, 598–599, 651.
33. Rabbani, Muqaddama, 68–69. See also al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 463.
34. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 453–454. For a partial translation of Zauqi Shah’s
Sufi lexicon, Sirr-i dilbaran, see Marcia K. Hermansen, “Visions as ‘Good to
Think’: A Cognitive Approach to Visionary Experience in Islamic Sufi
Thought,” Religion, Vol. 27 (January 1997): 25–43.
35. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 790–791. Another discourse notes that due to excessive
bodily strength (jismani hiddat) and an inner heat, Zauqi Shah was often
forced to drink excess amounts of water, even in winters. This emphasis on
inner heat, implicitly caused by ascetic spiritual exercises, recalls the Hindu
notion of tapas. See al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 456.
36. Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi, 43. Hajj-i Zauqi has been translated into English by
Mrs. Tehzeeb un-Nisa Aziz, though it has yet to be published by the Chishti
Sabiri order. Mrs. Aziz graciously provided me with a copy of her translation,
and this has proved immensely helpful in guiding my own reading of the Urdu
original. The translations that follow, however, are my own.
38. Ibid., 439; Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi, 64–65, 89–90. Uways al-Qarani was a
Yemeni contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad. Though they never met,
Uways is remembered for his deep devotion to the Prophet. As Ernst and
Lawrence note, “The nonphysical binding of two like-minded Sufis is called
Uwaysi initiation, and it shows up with particular force in the Sabiri branch of
the Chishtiyya” (Sufi Martyrs of Love, 22).
39. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 799–803.
40. Faridi, Malfuzat, 119.
42. Ibid., 772–774.
43. Ibid., 757–759.
44. Faridi, Malfuzat, 119–120. According to Sayyid Sharif al-Hasan’s account,
Zauqi Shah also received bay'at directly from Rashid Ahmad Gangohi in a
dream on October 4, 1934. See al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 494.
45. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 796–799; al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 487–488.
47. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 124.
48. On Zauqi Shah’s interactions with Christians, see Faridi, Malfuzat, 132–143
and Rabbani, Malfuzat, 573–574. On the shaykh’s encounters with Hindus,
see Rabbani, Malfuzat, 350–351, 379. On his views of other South Asian
N tes 239
religious traditions, see also Rabanni, Malfuzat, 689 (on Manu) and 746 (on
Guru Nanak and the Sikhs).
49. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 271–280, 227–228, 712–715.
50. See Sayyid Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Letters of a Sufi Saint to Jinnah [A reprint
with additions of the English version of Muzamin-i Zauqi], ed. Mansoor
Hashmi and Sayyid Tahir Maqsood (Lahore: Talifaat-e Shaheedi, 1949/
1998), 138–157.
53. Ibid., 124–125.
54. Lawrence, “The Chishtiya of Sultanate India,” 49.
56. Faridi, Malfuzat, 131. In the introduction to Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani summarizes Zauqi Shah’s teachings on hijabat (veils
from God), kashf (unveiling), and karamat (miracles) in detail. See Rabbani,
Muqaddama, 74–75.
57. Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi, 91.
59. Ibid., 437.
60. Ibid., 438.
61. Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi, 104.
63. Ibid., 93.
65. Ibid., 452.
67. Rabbani, Hajj-i Zauqi, 95–96.
70. Ibid., 105.
71. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 443. See also 451–452.
72. Ibid., 461.
73. Shahidullah Faridi, Malfuzat-i shaykh, compiled by Siraj 'Ali Muhammad
(Lahore: Qausin Publishers, 1996). Malfuzat-i shaykh has also recently been
translated into English by Mrs. Tehzeeb un-Nisa Aziz, though the text has yet
to be published. I am grateful to Mrs. Aziz for her willingness to share her fine
translation with me. Though I am indebted to her work, in what follows the
translations (and any mistakes) are my own.
74. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani translated Kashf al-mahjub from its original
Persian into Urdu. See Sayyid 'Ali ibn 'Uthman al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub,
Urdu translation from Persian with commentary by Wahid Bakhsh Sial
Rabbani (Lahore: al-Faisal Publishers, 1995). The text, with extensive com-
mentary, has also recently been translated into English and published by dis-
ciples in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. See Sayyid 'Ali ibn 'Uthman al-Hujwiri,
The Kashful Mahjub (“Unveiling the Veiled”): The Earliest Persian Treatise on
Sufism, English translation with commentary by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
(Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Noordeen, 1997).
75. See Aziz and Hashmi, eds., The Sufi Path (Book 14), 9.
76. An excerpt from a lecture given by Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani in January
1995 suggests that Faruq Ahmad met Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi on his own.
240 N tes
According to this account, Faruq came to India by himself in 1937, traveling

first to Tagore’s Ashram in Calcutta and then to Delhi where he spent time at
the shrine of Nizam ad-Din Awliya. See Aziz and Hashmi, eds., The Sufi Path
(Book 14), 53. For broader discussions of Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi and his legacy
at Deoband, see Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India; Marcia K.
Hermansen, “Rewriting Sufi Identity in the 20th Century: The Biographical
Approaches of Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanvi (d. 1943) and Khwaja Hasan
Nizami (d. 1955),” an unpublished paper presented at the American Academy
of Religion Conference, November 1997.
77. Aziz and Hashmi, eds., The Sufi Path (Book 14), 10.
78. On Frithjof Schuon and the Sufi Perennialist school in Europe and the United
States, see Carl W. Ernst, “Traditionalism, the Perennial Philosophy and
Islamic Studies,” Middle East Studies Association, Bulletin 28 (1994):
176–180.
79. For Shahidullah’s lessons on Qur'an interpretation, see Faridi, Malfuzat-i
shaykh, 58–59, 72–73, 86–89. The text also includes discourses on hadith
(52) and references to premodern Sufi masters that parallel those of Zauqi
Shah, including important allusions to Hajji Imdad Allah’s manual, Zia al-
qulub (20–21, 154–155).
80. Faridi, Malfuzat-i shaykh, 77.
81. In one discourse in Malfuzat-i shaykh, e.g., Shahidullah Faridi discusses at
some length a number of scientific subjects, including evolution (251–253,
256–257); scientific inquiry and invention (254–255); the compatibility of
prophecy and science (254); and Islam as a “natural religion” (259–260).
83. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 664–665. Ernst traces the history and Sufi legacy of
Daulatabad and Khuldabad in Eternal Garden.
86. Ibid., 663. After emigrating to Pakistan, Shahidullah returned to India only
once in his life: for pilgrimage in 1962 (Aziz and Hashmi, eds., The Sufi Path
(Book 14), 39).
87. Shahidullah Faridi’s Wasyat nama (final will and testament) was published in
English in the back of an early Urdu version of Malfuzat-i shaykh. In Tarbiyat
al-'ushshaq, Muhammad Zauqi Shah asserts that neither khilafat nor
prophecy is possible for women. See Rabbani, Malfuzat, 683.
89. Ibid., 153. Elsewhere Shahidullah evokes the Prophet Muhammad, Khwaja
Mu'in ad-Din Chishti, and Hazrat Maryam (the mother of Jesus) in dis-
cussing marital responsibilities. See Faridi, Malfuzat-i shaykh, 114–115.
91. The will of Shahidullah Faridi, Wasyat nama, 1.
92. Faridi, Malfuzat-i shaykh, 135–136.
93. Ibid., 135.
95. Ibid., 53.
96. Ibid., 9.
97. Ibid., 10.
98. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Islamic Sufism: The Science of Flight to God, in
God, with God, by God and Union and Communion with God, also Showing the
N tes 241
Tremendous Sufi Influence on Christian and Hindu Mystics and Mysticism

(Bahawalpur, Pakistan: Justice Muhammad Akbar Academy, 1995), 417.
100. The will Shahidullah Faridi’s, in Shahidullah Faridi, Wasyat nama [An
English translation of Shahidullah Faridi’s last will and testament], reprinted
in an early addition of Malfuzat-i shaykh, no date.
102. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 98.
103. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 5.
104. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 192.
105. Khwaja Hasan Nizami is mentioned twice in Zauqi Shah’s discourses in
Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq (Rabbani, Malfuzat, 336, 380). On Khwaja Hasan
Nizami, see Marcia K. Hermansen, “Common Themes, Uncommon Texts:
Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) and Khwaja Hasan Nizami
(1878–1955),” in A Pearl in the Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism
of Hazrat Inayat Khan, ed., Pirzade Zia Inayat Khan (New Lebanon, NY:
Omega Publications, 2001), 323–353. See also Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi
Martyrs of Love, 113–118.
Chapter 3 Imagining Sufism: The Publicati n

f Chishti Sabiri Identity
1. Lawrence Grossberg, “Identity and Cultural Studies: Is That All There Is?”
in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (London:
Sage Publications, 1997), 89.
2. Sudipta Kaviraj, “The Imaginary Institution of India,” in Subaltern Studies
VII: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Partha Chatterjee and
Gyanendra Pandey (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 33.
3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983/1991), 6, 44–45. On the link
between ideology and print media, see also Lawrence, Defenders of God,
72–73.
4. Salvatore, Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity, 138.
5. On the role of the mass media in the construction of colonial and postcolonial
identities in South Asia, see Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus
and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Carol
A. Breckenridge, ed., Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian
World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); David Ludden,
ed., Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy
in India (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).
6. Francis Robinson, “Islam and the Impact of Print in South Asia,” in The
Transmission of Knowledge in South Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History
and Politics, ed. Nigel Crook (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 63.
7. Ibid., 73–75. See also Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India, 206–210.
8. Eickelman and Anderson, “Redefining Muslim Publics,” 2. For comparative
analysis, see Richard P. Mitchell’s discussion of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969/1993); Brinkley Messick’s masterful study of the
negotiation of shari'a among the 'ulama of Yemen, The Calligraphic State:
Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of
242 N tes
California Press, 1993); Serif Mardin’s examination of the legacy of the

famous Islamist ideologue and reformist of Turkey, Religion and Social
Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1989).
9. Muhsin Mahdi, “From the Manuscript Age to the Age of Print Books,” in The
Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the
Middle East, ed. George N. Atiyeh (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1995), 6–7. For a comparative study of contemporary Egypt, see also
Julian Johansen, Sufism and Islamic Reform in Egypt: The Battle for Islamic
Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
10. Carl W. Ernst, “Sufism in Print: The Pakistani Sources,” unpublished proposal
for the American Institute of Pakistani Studies Research Grant, 1998, 3.
11. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 194–199.
12. Carl W. Ernst, “Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism: Problematizing
the Teaching of Sufism,” in Teaching Islam, ed. Brannon M. Wheeler (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 120.
13. On Sayyid Mehr Ali Shah of Golra, see especially Gilmartin, Empire and
Islam, 58–59. On Khwaja Hasan Nizami, see Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi
Martyrs of Love, 113–118. On Jama'at 'Ali Shah, see Gilmartin, Empire and
Islam, 59–61, 103–107; Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 190–223.
15. Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a
World Civilization. Vol. 3, The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 176–222.
16. The following taxonomy of Indo-Muslim schools of thought—modernists,
traditionalists, Islamists—is based on Marilyn Robinson Waldman, “Tradition
as a Modality of Change: Islamic Examples,” History of Religions, Vol. 25, No.
4 (1986): 318–340.
17. Sami Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State: Essays on Political Ideas and
Movements in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 1989), 157.
18. Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, 86.
19. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 483–484. For an abbreviated but insightful discus-
sion of Zauqi Shah’s literary legacy, see also Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs
of Love, 81–83, 123–127.
20. Sayyid Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Sirr-i dilbaran (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya,
1951/1985).
22. Ibid., 490.
23. For Zauqi Shah’s critique of Wahhabi doctrine, see Rabbani, Malfuzat, 667,
726–727, 794. For his views of Mawdudi, see “Tarikh-i Abu al-'Ala,” in
Sayyid Muhammad Zauqi Shah, Muzamin-i Zauqi, compiled by Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqia, 1949/1975), 279–302.
24. Sayyid Muhammad Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” originally published in Islamic
Review in London, 1933; reprinted in Letters of a Sufi Saint to Jinnah [A
reprint with additions of the English version of Muzamin-i Zauqi], ed.
Mansoor Hashmi and Sayyid Tahir Maqsood (Lahore: Talifaat-e Shaheedi,
1949/1998), 177.
25. al-Hasan, Sirat-i Zauqi, 454. Mawdudi purchased Tarjuman al-Qur'an in
Hyderabad in September 1932. He remained the journal’s sole editor until
1979 and wrote most of the articles himself, though he did solicit articles as
N tes 243
well. See Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic
Revivalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 28.
27. The text was completed in Ajmer on April 17, 1943. The Urdu version is
available as “Hindi ki Aryon ki asl par tanqid-i jadid,” in Zauqi Shah,
Muzamin-i Zauqi, 313–337. The English version has been reprinted in Zauqi
Shah, Letters of a Sufi Saint to Jinnah, 93–108.
29. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 205, footnote 58.
30. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Reactivization of Islam (Lahore: Bazm-i Ittehad
al-Muslimin, 1988), 97–107. See also Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, The
Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan [An English translation of Pakistan
ki azim ush-shan difai quwwat], translation and commentary by Brigadier
Muhammad Asghar (Lahore: al-Faisal Publishers, 2000), 420–428, 562
31. On Muhammad 'Ali Jinnah and the history of the Pakistan movement, see
especially Akbar S. Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search
for Saladin (New York: Routledge, 1997); Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman:
Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
32. Zauqi Shah, Letters of a Sufi Saint to Jinnah, 17.
34. Rabbani, Muqaddama, 76–77.
35. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar (Lahore: al-Faisal
Publishers, 1994), 26.
36. Shahidullah Faridi, Inner Aspects of Faith (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya,
1979/1986; reprint edition, Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Noordeen (2nd edition),
1993); Shahidullah Faridi, Everyday Practice in Islam (Karachi: Mahfil-i
Zauqiyya, 1970/1999); Shahidullah Faridi, Spirituality in Religion, compiled
by Siraj 'Ali Muhammad (Lahore: Talifaat-e Shaheedi, 1999); Shahidullah
Faridi, The Moral Message of God and His Prophet (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya,
1973/1995).
37. The final will and testament (Wasyat nama) of Faridi, Wasyat nama, 3–4.
38. Faridi, Malfuzat-i shaykh, 120–121, 140–141, 149–150, 212–214.
39. Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar; 'Abd ar-Rahman Chishti (d. 1683),
Mir'at al-asrar, Urdu translation from Persian by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani
(Lahore: Ziya al-Qur'an Publications, 1993); al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub.
40. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Mushahada-i haqq (Karachi: Mahfil-i Zauqiyya,
1974; reprinted Lahore: al-Faisal Publishers, 1995).
42. Ibid., 113.
43. Ibid., 116.
44. Ibid., 117.
45. Ibid., 118.
46. Ibid., 123.
47. Ibid., 126.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid., 260.
50. On Nadwi, see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Arabic, the Arab Middle East,
and the Definition of Muslim Identity in Twentieth Century India,” Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 8, 1 (1998): 59–81. For Nadwi’s critique
244 N tes
of Mawlana Mawdudi, see Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic

Revivalism, 58–59.
51. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 130. Wahid Bakhsh expounds on this important
doctrine in several publications. See especially Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani,
Wahdat al-wujud o wahdat ash-shuhud (Lahore: Bazm-i Ittehad al-Muslimin,
1988); Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar, 212–231. Zauqi Shah also wrote
an essay by the same title in Muzamin-i Zauqi, 107–115.
52. Ibid., 138. On the distinction between these complex metaphysical principles,
see Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 267–268.
54. Ibid., 130.
55. Ibid., 139–140.
56. Ibid., 143. Islamic Sufism contains a length essay of Muhammad Zauqi Shah
entitled, “The Sufi Path,” in which the spiritual path from fana' fi Allah
(absorption in God) to baqa' bi Allah (subsistence in God) is discussed in
detail. See pages 73–112.
57. Ibid., 143–144. On ecstatic expressions (shathiyat) and the debates over
Islamic orthodoxy and heresy, see Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985).
58. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 145–146.
59. Ibid., 146.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., 148.
62. Ibid., 153.
63. Ibid., 154.
64. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 94. See also pages 66–67, 126.
66. Ibid., 6.
67. Ibid., 11.
68. Ibid., 13.
69. Ibid., 4.
70. Ibid., 304.
71. Ibid., 158–159.
72. Ibid., 282.
73. Ibid., 1.
74. Ibid., 9 (emphasis in original text).
75. Ibid., 32–39.
76. Ibid., 39–57. Maurice Bucaille (b. 1920) published his book in 1976 in
French under the title Le Bible, le coran et la science.
77. On the life and legacy of al-Afghani, see the insightful study by Nikki Keddie,
An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid
Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani” (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1968/1983). On Sayyid Ahmad Khan, see especially Lelyveld, Aligarh’s First
Generation. For the clearest exposition of Muhammad Iqbal’s thought, see his
classic The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Sh.
Muhammad Ashraf, 1934/1982). For a survey of the life and teachings of
Said Nursi, see Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey.
78. Talal Asad, “Religion, Nation-State, Secularism,” in Nation and Religion:
Perspectives on Europe and Asia, ed. Pater van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 191.
N tes 245
79. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani, Pakistan ki azim ush-shan difai quwwat
(Lahore: Bazm-i Ittehad al-Muslimin, 1986). The original Urdu text was
translated into English at Wahid Bakhsh’s request by a senior disciple,
Brigadier Muhammad Asghar. In what follows, I quote from Asghar’s apt
translation. Many of the book’s arguments are summarized in another (and
much shorter) English text by Rabbani, Reactivization of Islam.
80. Nasr offers an overview of the history and enduring legacy of Zia al-Haq
in his comparative study Islamic Leviathan. For a broader survey of the
Afghan war of the 1980s and its long-term implications for Pakistan’s
domestic politics, see also the works of Ahmed Rashid (Taliban and
Jihad).
81. Rabbani, The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan, 479–480.
82. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 49.
83. Zaman, “Arabic, the Arab Middle East, and the Definition of Muslim
Identity in Twentieth Century India,” 80.
84. Rabbani, The Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan, 475.
85. Ibid., 501.
86. Ibid., 527 (emphasis added).
87. Ibid., 3–4.
88. Ibid., 51.
89. Ibid., 36. Jihad is a misunderstood and maligned concept, especially in the
wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. For further insights on this con-
cept, see especially Vincent J. Cornell, “Jihad: Islam’s Struggle for Truth,”
Gnosis Magazine (Fall 1991): 18–23; Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of
Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
91. Ibid., 383.
92. Ibid., 431.
93. Ibid., 382, 449. Clearly, Wahid Bakhsh views the implementation of shari'a
as the first step to social reform, but he provides no specific details on the
codification, interpretation, and institutionalization of Islamic law.
94. Ibid., 441–443, 451, 467.
95. Ibid., 453–466. The debate over riba remains a hotly contested issue in
Pakistan’s domestic politics. Calls for its elimination remain a central item on
the political platform of Pakistan’s coalition of religious parties.
96. Ibid., 552–562. Wahid Bakhsh’s suggestions for military reform are sweep-
ing. He calls for military conscription and civil defense training for every
male citizen of Pakistan between the ages of sixteen and sixty; the issuing of
licenses for personal weapons; increased support for a national defense indus-
try and military research; and the development of a “Common Defense
Council of Islam” to coordinate, finance, and implement a “common for-
eign policy of the Muslim states.”
97. Ibid., 435–441. Wahid Bakhsh provides a broad outline of “Islamic democ-
racy” but few details on its practical implementation.
98. Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism, 87.
100. Ibid., 407.
101. Ibid., 428–429, 433–434. For an insightful study of the history and dra-
matic spread of sectarian politics and violence in contemporary Pakistan, see
246 N tes
Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, Chapter Five, “Refashioning

Identities,” 111–143.
102. Ibid., 248–249.
103. Eickelman and Anderson, eds., New Media in the Muslim World, 9.
104. The quotation from Shahidullah Faridi is found in a handwritten forward
(dated 1393 Hijri/1973) that is reproduced in the introduction to Tarbiyat
al-'ushshaq, 6.
105. Jon W. Anderson, “The Internet and Islam’s New Interpreters,” in New
Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F. Eickelman
and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 49.
For insight on the growing importance of the Internet among contemporary
Chishti groups, see also Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 143–145.
106. Dale F. Eickelman, “Communication and Control in the Middle East,” in
New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F.
Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1999), 38.
107. Blank, Mullahs on the Mainframe, 176.
108. Lawrence, Defenders of God, 17.
109. Sirriyeh, Sufis and Anti-Sufis, 89.
110. Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, 180.
111. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial
Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 76.
112. Kaviraj, “The Imaginary Institution of India,” 36.
113. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994), 37.
Chapter 4 Teaching Sufism: Netw rks

f C mmunity and Discipleship
1. Barbara Daly Metcalf, “Introduction,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The
Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984), 9–10.
2. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 25–26. See also Mohammad
Ajmal, “A Note on Adab in the Murshid-Murid Relationship,” in Moral
Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara
Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 241–251;
Gerhard Bowering, “The Adab Literature of Classical Sufism: Ansari’s
Code of Conduct,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in
South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1984), 62–87; Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism,
145–146.
3. For perspectives on the roles of women in Sufi practice, see especially
Shemeem Abbas, The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of
Pakistan and India (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); Patricia
Jeffery, Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah (London: Zed Press,
1979); Annemarie Schimmel, My Soul Is a Woman-The Feminine in Islam
(New York: Continuum, 1997). For historical perspective, see also Abu 'Abd
ar-Rahman as-Sulami, Early Sufi Women (Dhikr an-niswa al-muta 'abbidat
as-sufiyyat), translation and commentary by Rkia E. Cornell (Louisville:
Fons Vitae, 1999).
N tes 247
4. Wahid Bakhsh publicly defends the honor and sanctity of the Prophet’s family
lineage in his book 'Azamat-i Ahl-i Bait-i Rasul (Lahore: al-Faisal Publishers,
1994). See also Rabbani, Malfuzat, 629–630. For a broad discussion of the
role of sectarian identities and organizations in the politics of contemporary
Pakistan, see Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, especially 118–131.
5. This personal letter was shared with me during an interview recorded on
October 6, 2001 at a private home in Kuala Lumpur. See also the discourse by
Shahidullah Faridi, “A Balance between Spiritual and Worldly Obligations,”
in Faridi, Spirituality in Religion, 93–99.
6. On the distinction between “inner” and “outer” knowledge, see the dis-
courses of Shahidullah Faridi in Spirituality in Religion, in particular the lec-
tures entitled “Sufis” (41–42) and “Signs” (57–58).
7. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 26.
8. Quoted in Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 99.
9. Shahidullah Faridi, “The Spiritual Psychology of Islam,” in Faridi, Inner
Aspects of Faith, 93. For an overview of contemporary Chishti Sabiri doctrine
regarding the states and stations of the path, see Zauqi Shah, “Suluk,” in
Zauqi Shah, Sirr-i dilbaran, 199–203; Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” 164–182.
10. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 61. See also Rabbani, Muqaddama, 56–57.
11. Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi, quoted in Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf 'Ali
Thanawi’s Bishishti Zewar, translated with commentary by Barbara Daly
Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 200. By contrast,
Shah Waliullah (d. 1762), the famous eighteenth-century Naqshbandi Sufi
master of Delhi, lists seven criteria of a perfected shaykh in his text Al-qawl al-
jamil, Urdu translation by Khurram 'Ali. 2nd ed. Shifa' al'alil (Karachi:
Educational Press, 1974). See Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 152.
13. Shahidullah Faridi, “Baiat,” in Faridi, Inner Aspects of Faith, 66. Zauqi Shah
also discusses Sufi initiation in his spiritual dictionary Sirr-i dilbaran. See the
entries under “Shaykh” (239–240) and “Sufism” (167–168, 171).
14. Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” 164–182.
15. Faridi, “Baiat,” 70. For details on the multiple stages of fana' from the
Naqshbandi perspective, see Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, Chapter Six,
“Bonding the Heart with the Shaykh,” 131–146.
16. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 242–243. See also Zauqi Shah, “Fana' wa baqa',” in
Zauqi Shah, Sirr-i dilbaran, 277.
17. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 155. The term in Arabic is bay'a, but here I
follow the Persian rendering (bay'at) favored by contemporary Chishti Sabiri
disciples. For details on the history and symbolism of the Sufi initiation ritual,
see Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 155–163; Ernst, The Shambhala Guide
to Sufism, 141–146; Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 24–25.
18. Faridi, “Baiat,” 72. For an expanded discussion of bay'at see especially Zauqi
Shah, Sirr-i dilbaran, 92–109.
19. Contemporary firsthand accounts of the Sufi master-disciple relationship are
rare. Among the more accessible and insightful works are a number of spiri-
tual diaries written by women. See especially Michaela Ozelsel, Forty Days:
The Diary of a Traditional Solitary Sufi Retreat (Brattleboro, VT: Threshold
Books, 1996); Irina Tweedie, Daughter of Fire: A Diary of Spiritual Training
with a Sufi Master (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1986). For a
more scholarly account that explores pir-murid relations through the lens of
248 N tes
sociolinguistics, see Frances Trix, Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an

Islamic Master (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). For a
comparative study of the contemporary Chishti order, see also Desiderio
Pinto, Piri-Muridi Relationship: A Study of the Nizamuddin Dargah (Delhi:
Manohar, 1995). Pinto’s analysis is valuable more for its ethnographic mate-
rial—the book offers lengthy quotes from contemporary Chishti murids—
than its interpretive analysis.
21. Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” 171. See also Faridi, “Baiat,” 69–70.
22. Carl W. Ernst, “Mystical Language and the Teaching Context in Early
Lexicons of Sufism,” in Mysticism and Language, ed. Steven T. Katz (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 191. Frances Trix provides a detailed
ethnography of the importance and nuances of language in Sufi pedagogy in
her book Spiritual Discourse. Trix’s monograph focuses on a contemporary
Albanian Bektashi community in Michigan.
24. Trix, Spiritual Discourse, 150.
25. Faridi, “Baiat,” 70. See also Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 103;
Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 133.
26. Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” 168. See also Rabbani, Malfuzat, 790.
27. This is an extract from a personal letter communicated during a personal
interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 6, 2001.
29. Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi, quoted in Perfecting Women, 200. Thanawi’s expanded
list of thirteen rules for Sufi adepts appears on pages 200–202. See also Ajmal,
“A Note on Adab in the Murshid-Murid Relationship,” 243–244.
31. Sijzi, Morals for the Heart, 143. See also Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of
Love, 19.
32. Katherine P. Ewing, “Dreams from a Saint: Anthropological Atheism and the
Temptation to Believe,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 96 (1994): 578. For
an insightful ethnographic analysis of contemporary pir-murid relationships,
see also Katherine P. Ewing, “The Modern Businessman and the Pakistani
Saint: The Interpenetration of Worlds,” in Manifestations of Sainthood in
Islam, ed. Grace Martin Smith (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993), 69–84.
34. Narayan, Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels, 247.
35. On the importance of silence in Sufi training, see Trix, Spiritual Discourse, 122.
36. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 148–149.
38. Faridi, “Baiat,” 69.
39. Zauqi Shah echoes this belief in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq: “The friends of God
continue to progress even after death. There is no limit to the divine essence
[dhat], so there is no limit to progress” (Rabbani, Malfuzat, 305).
42. On the life and legacy of Khwaja Hasan Nizami, see Ernst and Lawrence,
Sufi Martyrs of Love, 113–188. See also Hermansen, “Common Themes,
Uncommon Contexts,” 323–353.
43. The final will and testament of Faridi, Wasyat nama, 3–4.
N tes 249

45. The final will and testament of Faridi, Wasyat nama, 2.
46. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 183.
47. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood, 163.
48. The final will and testament of Faridi, Wasyat nama, 2–3.
49. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 243.
50. Ibid., 113.
51. Zauqi Shah, “Sufism,” 171.
Chapter 5 Experiencing Sufism: The

Discipline f Ritual Practice
1. This is a selection from a personal letter narrated during an interview on
October 6, 2001 in Kuala Lumpur. Wahid Bakhsh provides a detailed
overview of the theory and practice of suluk in Mushahada-i haqq. See in par-
ticular the chapter entitled “Suluk illa Allah ya'ni tariq-i husul-i maqsad-i
hayat” (“The Spiritual Journey to God, or the Path to Attaining the Purpose
of Life”), 82–134.
2. Michel Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self: A
Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and
Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 18.
See also Michel Foucault, “About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the
Self,” in Religion and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (New York: Routledge,
1999), 158–181. For a critique, see Ladelle McWhorter, “Culture or Nature?:
The Function of the Term ‘Body’ in the Work of Michel Foucault,” Journal
of Philosophy, Vol. 86, No. 11 (November 1989): 608–614.
3. Michael Jackson, “Knowledge of the Body,” Man, Vol. 18, No. 12 (June
1983): 337. Scholars in various academic disciplines have studied the role of
the body in ritual practice. For an overview, see especially Catherine Bell,
“The Ritual Body,” in Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 94–117; Thomas
J. Csordas, ed., Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of
Culture and Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Csordas,
“Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology,” 5–47; Margaret Lock,
“Cultivating the Body: Anthropology and Epistemologies of Bodily Practice
and Knowledge,” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 22 (1993): 133–155.
4. An extract from a personal letter dated March 2, 1932, republished in Zauqi
Shah, Letters of a Sufi Saint to Jinnah, 160–161.
5. Kugle, “The Heart of Ritual Is the Body,” 42. On the application of ritual
studies to Sufi practice, see also Qamar-ul Huda, Striving for Divine Union:
Spiritual Exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003),
83–89.
6. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated by
Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 81. For a
detailed examination of Ibn Khaldun’s description of dreams, see also Gordon
E. Pruett, “Through a Glass Darkly: Knowledge of the Self in Dreams in Ibn
Khaldun’s Muqaddimah, “ Muslim World, Vol. LXXV (January 1985): 29–44.
7. On the importance of dreams in classical Islam and the historical development
of the science of ta'bir, see especially John C. Lamoreaux, The Early Muslim
Tradition of Dream Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2002). See also Taufiq Fahd, “Ru'ya: The Meaning of Dreams,” in
250 N tes
Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. VIII, ed. C.E. Bosworth et al. (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1995), 645–647; Taufiq Fahd, “The Dream in Medieval Islamic Society,” in
The Dream and Human Societies, ed. G.E. von Grunebaum and Roger
Caillois (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 351–363; Leah
Kindberg, “Literal Dreams and Prophetic Hadiths in Classical Islam: A
Comparison of Two Ways of Legitimation,” Der Islam, Vol. LXX (1993),
279–300; Miklos Maroth, “The Science of Dreams in Islamic Culture,”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, Vol. 20 (1996): 229–238.
8. Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane, trans. and eds., The Concept of Sainthood in
Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (Richmond,
Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996), 9. For an overview of the importance of dreams
in Sufi theory and practice, see also Hermansen, “Visions as ‘Good to
Think,’ ” 25–43.
9. Ruzbihan Baqli, The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master, translation
and commentary by Carl W. Ernst (Chapel Hill: Parvardigar Press, 1997). For
a detailed account of Ruzbihan’s life and legacy, see Carl W. Ernst, Ruzbihan
Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (Richmond,
Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996).
10. This is an extract from the personal letter of a female Pakistani disciple dated
February 9, 1988.
11. This taxonomy is found in Katherine P. Ewing, “The Pir or Sufi Saint in
Pakistani Islam,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago,
1980, 90–139.
12. Valerie J. Hoffman, “The Role of Visions in Contemporary Egyptian
Religious Life,” Religion, Vol. 27 (January 1997): 48–49.
13. Faridi, “Baiat,” 71.
14. Ewing, “The Modern Businessman and the Pakistani Saint,” 76–81. For
comparative ethnographic material on dreams, see Pinto, Piri-Muridi
Relationship, 262–263. For similar accounts among both Muslims and
Coptic Christians in contemporary Egypt, see also Hoffman, “The Role of
Visions,” 48, 52.
15. Katherine P. Ewing, “The Dream of Spiritual Initiation and the Organization
of Self Representations among Pakistani Sufis,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 17
(1990): 60.
17. Hoffman, “The Role of Visions,” 49.
18. Thanawi, Perfecting Women, 201.
19. This is an excerpt from a personal letter dated April 10, 1988.
20. Quoted in Jonathan G. Katz, Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood: The Visionary
Career of Muhammad al-Zawawi (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 205.
21. Taufiq Fahd, “Istikhara,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. IV, ed. Evan Daniel
et al. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 259–260. See also Hermansen, “Visions as
‘Good to Think,’” 27. Ibn Khaldun describes his own experiments with
istikhara in his book The Muqaddimah, 84.
22. Faridi, Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 116.
23. Ewing, “The Pir or Sufi Saint in Pakistani Islam,” 110.
24. For an overview of lata'if in the context of Sufi meditation practices, see
Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 106–111; Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet, 106–109.
N tes 251
25. On the Kubrawi tradition, see especially Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of
God: The Life and Thought of 'Ala ad-dawla as-Simnani (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995). See in particular Chapter Five, “The
Spiritual Body and the Mirror of God,” 79–99. See also Shazad Bashir,
Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya between Medieval and
Modern Islam (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
26. On the Naqshbandi theory of lata'if, see especially Marcia K. Hermansen,
“Shah Wali Allah’s Theory of the Subtle Spiritual Centers (Lata'if ): A
Sufi Model of Personhood and Self-Transformation,” Journal of Near
Eastern Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1 (January 1988): 1–25; Buehler, Sufi Heirs of
the Prophet, 103–113; Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 174.
Muhammad Zauqi Shah summarizes the Naqshbandi Mujaddadi system
in Sirr-i dilbaran, 299. He also provides a comprehensive summary of
Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi’s three-tiered cosmological model in a detailed
foldout chart (200–201). Hermansen reproduces and translates Zauqi
Shah’s chart in her article “Shah Wali Allah’s Theory of the Subtle Spiritual
Centers,” 8–9.
27. Kugle, “The Heart of Ritual Is the Body,” 48. See also Ernst and Lawrence,
Sufi Martyrs of Love, 130–134.
28. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani refers to both of his Chishti Sabiri predecessors in
Mushahada-i haqq, 102–103. Shahidullah Faridi references Ziya' al-qulub in
Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 20–21.
29. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 71–72. Wahid Bakhsh provides no reference for this
hadith, though it is also found in Hajji Imdad Allah’s book Ziya' al-qulub, in
Kulliyat-i Imdadiyya (Deoband: Kutub Khana Hadi, no date) (see Ernst and
Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 131). The same typology is repeated in Wahid
Bakhsh Sial Rabbani’s Mushahada-i haqq (100) and Zauqi Shah’s Tarbiyat al-
'ushshaq (Rabbani, Muqaddama, 58; Rabbani, Malfuzat, 357, 704). Zauqi
Shah details the lata'if in Sirr-i dilbaran as well (298–300). On the whole,
however, the writings of contemporary Chishti Sabiri shaykhs regarding
the lata'if provide far less nuance and detail than those of their premodern
predecessors.
30. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 306. On Chishti Sabiri cosmology, see also pages
62–67, 307. For comparison with the Naqshbandi Mujjadadi model, see
Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 105–107.
31. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 27. For a broad analysis of zikr in
the Qur'an and Sufi practice see especially Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to
Sufism, 92–98; Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 167–178.
32. Faridi, Inner Aspects of Faith, 110–111. Shahidullah’s words echo those of his
nineteenth-century Chishti Sabiri predecessor Hajji Imdad Allah. See Kugle,
“The Heart of Ritual Is the Body,” 57, footnote 28.
33. Faridi, Spirituality in Religion, 68. Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani provides an
overview of Chishti Sabiri zikr in Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar, 420–425.
34. For a comparative analysis of the Naqshbandi practice of silent zikr (zikr-i
qalbi or “remembrance of the heart”), see Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet,
127–130. The Suhrawardi order also practices vocal zikr. See Huda, Striving
for Divine Union, 101–107, 157–164.
35. On zikr-i ism-i dhat, see Rabbani, Mushahada-i haqq, 101–102; Rabbani,
Islamic Sufism, 307–308.
252 N tes
36. Shajara tayyaba ma'a awrad aur waza'if [The Exalted Spiritual Genealogy
with Devotional Exercises and Daily Prayers], the unpublished, official hand-
book of the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order, compiled by Shaykh
Muhammad Zauqi Shah, 38.
37. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 403–404. On the links of early Chishti Sabiri masters with
Hindu ascetics, see Simon Digby, “'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537
A.D.): The Personality and Attitudes of a Medieval Indian Sufi,” Medieval
India—A Miscellany, Vol. 3 (1975): 1–66; Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs
of Love, 106.
38. Shahidullah Faridi, Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 20–21. Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani labels
these forms of silent zikr as “zikr-i khafi” (“hidden zikr”) and describes them
as mashaghil (“duties”). See Rabbani, Mushahada-i haqq, 102; Rabbani,
Islamic Sufism, 305–306.
40. Malfuzat-i Shaykh contains a lengthy lecture by Shaykh Shahidullah Faridi on
the proper adab for halqa-i zikr. See pages 185–190.
42. This extract from a personal letter was read during an interview on October 6,
2001 in Kuala Lumpur.
43. On Hajji Imdad Allah and 'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi, see Ernst and Lawrence,
Sufi Martyrs of Love, 130–133; Digby, “'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi,” 1–66. On
zikr-i nafi ithbat, see also Rabbani, Mushahada-i haqq, 101; Rabbani, Islamic
Sufism, 308.
44. Zauqi Shah, Sirr-i dilbaran, 304. See also Rabbani, Mushahada-i haqq,
102–103; Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar, 426–434.
45. For a detailed description of the Naqshbandi system, see Buehler, Appendix
Two, “Mujaddidi Contemplations,” in Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, 241–248.
46. Faridi, Spirituality in Religion, 23. See also Faridi, Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 56.
47. This is an extract from a personal letter dated October 31, 1989.
49. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 282. Regarding the proper adab at shrines of saints,
see also Faridi, Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 60.
50. This is an extract from a personal letter written to a female Pakistani murid
dated October 31, 1989. See also Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 275. Zauqi
Shah issues a similar warning in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq, advising his followers to
avoid the mazars of spiritually intoxicated saints (majzub). See Rabbani,
Malfuzat, 201.
52. See the Web site http://www.abcmalaysia.com/tour_malaysia/mlka_
pbsr.htm.
53. Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani Thani was the eldest son of Shaykh Muhammad
al-Husseini al-Jilani, the founder of the first Qadiriyya khanaqah at Uch.
A native of Turkey, Shaykh Muhammad traveled to Khurasan and then
Multan before settling with his family in Uch. In tracing the history of this
family, Rizvi quotes extensively from the famous hagiographic dictionary
Akhbar al-akhyar [Tales of the Great Ones], compiled by Shaykh 'Abd al-
Haqq Muhaddith Dihlwawi, the Qadiri loyalist of the Mughal era. See Rizvi,
A History of Sufism in India, II: 58. On the rich history of Uch, see also
Mas'ud Hasan Shahab, Khitta-i pak Uch (Bahawalpur: Urdu Academy,
1967/1993), 257–261.
N tes 253
54. Peter Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World (Honolulu: University
of Hawai'i Press, 2001), 104. On Hamzah Fansuri, see also Mark R.
Woodward, Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of
Yogyakarta (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), 125–128;
G.W.J. Drewes and L.F Brakel, The Poems of Hamzah Fansuri (Dordrecth:
Foris Publications, 1986). For an overview of the history of Sufism in
Southeast Asia, see also Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Eastward Journey of Muslim
Kingship: Islam in South and Southeast Asia,” in The Oxford History of Islam,
ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 395–431;
M.C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia since 1300 (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1981/1993). None of these sources, however, documents
the history of Pulau Besar or the life of Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir Thani.
55. On the wali sanga and their role in the establishment of Islam in the
Indonesian archipelago during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see
Woodward, Islam in Java, 96–101.
56. Eaton, “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,” 334.
57. Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias,” Diacritics, Vol. 16, No. 1
(1986): 24.
58. Faridi, Spirituality in Religion, 59. See also the lecture entitled “Attendance
at the Mazars” (115–130) where Shahidullah Faridi invokes the Qur'an, al-
Ghazali, Rumi, and Ibn 'Arabi to articulate a comprehensive defense of the
tradition of ziyarat and defend the orthodoxy of intercession. Wahid Bakhsh
offers a detailed defense of both ziyarat and 'urs in Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar,
340–364.
59. Faridi, Malfuzat-i Shaykh, 77.
60. Ibid., 75–76. For a broad analysis of the Chishti response to the controversies
over pilgrimage to Sufi shrines, see Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love,
90–98.
61. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 90–91.
62. Wahid Bakhsh notes that Hajji Imdad Allah traced the term 'urs to a hadith
directed at the saints as they prepare for death: “Sleep with the sleep of a
bridegroom ('arus).” See Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar, 38; quoted in
Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 91. For an overview of 'urs festivals,
see Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 77–78; Syed Liyaqat Hussain
Moini, “Rituals and Customary Practices at the Dargah of Ajmer,” in Muslim
Shrines in India: Their Character, History and Significance, ed. Christian W.
Troll (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 60–75.
63. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 281. See also Wahid Bakhsh’s introduction to
Khwaja Ghulam Farid (compiled 1893–1901), Maqabis al-majalis, Urdu
translation from Persian by Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (Lahore: al-Faisal,
1979/1993), 239–242. Zauqi Shah details the spiritual blessings of 'urs in
numerous lectures in Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq. See, e.g., Faridi, Malfuzat, 122;
Rabbani, Malfuzat, 545.
64. Victor Turner, “The Center Out There: The Pilgrim’s Goal,” History of
Religions, Vol. 12, No. 1, 195.
65. Barbara Daly Metcalf, “Tablighi Jama'at and Women,” in Travellers in
Faith: Studies of the Tablighi Jama'at as a Transnational Islamic Movement for
Faith Renewal, ed. Muhammad Khalid Masud (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 48.
See also Barbara Daly Metcalf, “Living Hadith in the Tablighi Jama'at,”
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3 (August 1993): 584–608; Metcalf,
254 N tes
“Nationalism, Modernity, and Muslim Identity in India before 1947,”

129–143.
66. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 282. See also Rabbani, Malfuzat, 146, 152, 238, 280.
67. Rabbani, Islamic Sufism, 283–284.
68. This is an extract from a personal e-mail dated February 19, 2002, 1.
69. Ibid., 2.
71. Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Early Chishti Approach to Sama',” in Islamic
Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Professor Aziz Ahmad, ed. Milton Israel
and N.K. Wagle (Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1983), 73–74. For an analysis
of the defense of sama' by Chishti theorists, see Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi
Martyrs of Love, 34–46. For an overview of Sufi music, see Ernst, The
Shambhala Guide to Sufism, 179–198; Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of
Islam, 179–186.
72. Muhammad Zauqi Shah, e.g., offers a lengthy exposition and defense of
sama' in both Sirr-i dilbaran (203–226) and Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq (Rabbani,
Malfuzat, 248–250, 254–257, 390, 772–776, 806–816).
73. Rabbani, Maqam-i Ganj-i Shakkar, 365–416.
74. Faridi, Maqabis al-majalis, 131–212. The title of this lengthy chapter is “The
Taste of Sama'” (Zauq-i sama').
76. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love, 134–135.
77. On liminality and the transformative power of ritual, see Victor Turner, The
Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1977), 95–96.
78. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 810. A similar typography is found in the appendix to
Naghmat-i sama [The Melodies of Listening to Music], a sourcebook for
qawwali performers published in Pakistan in 1972. For a partial translation of
this Urdu manual, see Carl W. Ernst, Teachings of Sufism (Boston: Shambhala
Press, 1999), 105–117.
79. Rabbani, Malfuzat, 811–812. On the spiritual effects of listening to music,
see also 248–250, 749–750, 772–776.
82. Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, “Sufi Music and the Historicity of Oral
Tradition,” in Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum,
Philip V. Bohlman, and Daniel M. Neuman (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1991), 106–107. See also Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, “The Mahfil-e
Sama: Sufi Practice in the Indian Context,” Islam and the Modern Age,
Vol. 17, No. 3 (August 1986): 133–165.
83. In a detailed discussion of kalam, Muhammad Zauqi Shah recites a range of his
favorite poetic couplets. These include the Persian verses of Shams-i Tabriz,
Amir Khusrau, Hafiz, Khaqani, Maghribi, Rumi, Niyaz Ahmad Barelwi, Shah
Bahlul, 'Abd al-Quddus Gangohi, and Qutb ad-Din Bakhtiar Kaki. Zauqi Shah
also includes two couplets in Urdu: one from the popular singer 'Aziz Miyan
and one that he composed himself. See Rabbani, Malfuzat, 812–814. On the
qawwali lyrical repertoire, see also Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, Sufi Music of
India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 19–45.
84. Qureshi, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan, 231.
N tes 255
85. On the spread of South Asian qawwali to an international audience in the

twentieth century through the global recording industry see Regula
Burckhardt Qureshi, “Muslim Devotional: Popular Religious Music and
Muslim Identity under British, Indian and Pakistani Hegemony,” Asian
Music, Vol. 24 (1992–1993): 111–121; Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to
Sufism, 189–191.
86. This is an extract from a personal letter written to a female disciple dated
August 8, 1990.
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I dex
'Abd ar-Rahman Chishti (d. 1683) bihishti darwaza (Gate of Heaven) 26,
102 27, 28, 29, 30, 212
adab (etiquette and decorum) see also Pakpattan Sharif
of pilgrimage 27, 31, 55, 110 body
of ritual practice 180, 192, 193, and ritual practice 50–1, 66, 130–1,
197–8, 209 139, 161, 172, 173–5, 189–90,
of sama' 217–19, 222–3, 200, 218–19, 230
of Sufi discipleship 16, 44, 69, 79, spiritual body 109, 186–9
106, 131, 138, 143, 150, 154–5, see also lata'if
158–9, 163, 167, 168, 170, 186 British colonialism 3, 7, 21, 23, 36,
Afghanistan 3, 22, 113, 227 41, 48, 59–60, 64, 77–8, 92, 94,
see also Taliban 97, 108, 113, 119, 127, 206
Ahl-i Hadith 36, 48, 87, 92 see also Orientalism; postcolonialism
Ahmad Khan, Sayyid (1817–1898) 49,
92, 111 chilla (spiritual retreat) 53
see also Aligarh Muslim University Chishti Nizamis 3, 14, 87, 94, 164
Ajmer Sharif 26, 48, 51, 52, 58, 64, Chishti Sabiris
68, 79, 99, 198, 199, 202, 207 and Islamic orthodoxy 30–38
Aligarh Muslim University 39, 40, 49 disciples 7–9, 129–38
Arya Samaj 87, 92 history 3–5, 17, 227–30
Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi (1864–1943) 63, master-disciple relationship 139–62
140–1, 154, 180 publication campaign 120–7
awliya' Allah (Friends of God; Sufi ritual practices 175–225
saints) 35, 37, 39, 42–4, 45, 56, texts and teaching networks 162–72
59, 65, 84, 86, 147, 153, 163, see also Malaysian disciples
200, 206, 221, 223 Christianity 21, 53, 60, 73
see also saints/sainthood colonialism, see British colonialism
communalism 53, 108, 118
baqa' (permanence in God) 106, 109,
140, 165, 219, 220 dargahs (Sufi shrines) 3, 209–10
baraka (blessing; spiritual energy) 3, see also mazar; shrines
26, 33, 146, 150, 182, 206 Daudi Bohras 8–9, 125
see also faizan Deoband madrasa 3, 36, 48, 63, 87,
Barelwi 36, 92, 119 89, 92, 119, 140, 205–6, 208
batin (inward knowledge and din (religion) 8–9, 31, 36, 46, 135–8,
experience) 42, 63, 89, 101, 131, 185–6
139, 194, 205 see also dunya
bay'at (initiation ceremony) 16, 49, dreams 33, 63, 69, 71, 176–84
63, 67, 70, 80, 144, 145–50, dream theory 176–81, 183
178–9, 182, 184, 186 of Jesus 177–8
270 INDEX
dreams––continued hagiographical habitus 41, 45, 68, 74,

of Sufi saints 48, 51–2, 66–7, 68, 75, 80, 86, 228
79–80, 83, 85, 130, 179, 182 Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) 31, 46,
of the Prophet Muhammad 44, 47, 48, 51, 55, 57–8, 173
181–2 hal (states on the Sufi path) 33, 109,
see also istikhara; ta'bir 139, 150, 197, 216, 218
dunya (the mundane world) 8–9, 31, see also ecstasy
73, 135–8, 185–6, 230 halqa-i zikr (circle of remembrance)
193–5, 199, 225
ecstasy 2, 33–4, 45, 56–7, 72, 84–5, see also zikr
197–8, 216, 218–20 Hasan Nizami, Khwaja (1878–1955)
see also hal; wajd 87, 94, 164
ethnographic fieldwork 10–15, 80–1, Hindus/Hinduism 8, 25–6, 53–4, 55,
82, 132–3, 169, 194 73, 92, 97–9, 105–6, 110, 136,
158, 164, 191, 202, 205, 207
faizan (overflowing; spiritual energy) horizontal pedagogy 167–70
33–4, 154, 200, 203, 206, 209, Hujwiri, 'Ali (d. 1074) 62, 65–6,
218, 223 102, 114, 163, 165, 198,
see also baraka 199–201
fana' (annihilation in God) 40,
139–40, 142, 165, 181, 215, 220 'ibadat (worship; normative Islamic
faqir (impoverished one; a Sufi master) ritual practices) 37, 136, 137,
19, 24, 73, 110, 197 174, 184, 185, 218, 222
Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar (d. 1295) identity 1, 4, 6–9, 14, 17–24, 90–6,
4, 15, 19, 25–6, 32, 66–7, 69–70, 112, 119–20, 125–7, 130–1,
71, 83, 114, 149, 166–7, 198, 227 169–70, 179, 224–5, 227–30
see also Pakpattan Sharif ijtihad (independent reasoning) 56,
Faruq Ahmad (d. 1945) 62–6, 78–9, 94, 176
199 ikhlas (sincerity) 37, 139, 184
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) 63 'ilm (outward, discursive knowledge)
fundamentalists 13, 23, 93, 125 63, 95, 122, 137, 140, 205, 212
see also Islamists Imdad Allah al-Muhajir Makki, Hajji
(1817–1899) 3, 5, 36, 48, 52,
God 32, 38, 42–4, 53, 55, 56–7, 58, 58, 63, 89, 97, 146, 187, 195,
103, 106–7, 108, 136, 139–40, 205–6, 215, 228
142, 160, 173–4, 177, 184, see also Deoband madrasa
189–96, 204, 219–20 Internet 9, 90, 91, 125, 147, 158
Golden Age 6, 13, 112, 114, 117, 120 see also mass media
Great Western Transmutation 94–5 'ishq (love) 109, 140, 160
Islamic Sufism 102–12
habs-i dam (holding the breath) 191–2 Islamists (Muslim “fundamentalists”)
see also zikr 2, 6, 13, 19, 22–3, 35–7, 92–3,
hadith (traditions of the Prophet 95–6, 97, 98, 103, 107–8, 110,
Muhammad) 35, 43, 45, 49, 63, 118–19, 125, 217
64, 69, 77, 92, 96, 104, 106, 110, see also fundamentalists; Wahhabism
118, 137–8, 171, 173–4, 181 istikhara (induced dreams) 182–3
see also Muhammad the Prophet; sunna see also dreams
hagiography 41, 43, 51, 62, 71–2
see also sacred biography; Jama'at 'Ali Shah (d. 1951) 87, 93, 94
saints/sainthood see also Naqshbandi Sufi order
I dex 271
Jama'at-i Islami 36, 92, 97, 98 interactions with Sufi masters 35,
see also Islamists; Mawdudi 68, 78, 80, 82, 83, 130, 134–6,
Jesus 54, 83, 178 148, 149–50, 153, 155, 161,
jihad (struggle, striving) 8, 101, 116, 165–6, 170, 173, 177–9, 182,
140, 174, 186, 224 194–5
Jinnah, Muhammad 'Ali (1876–1948) pilgrimage 27–8, 33–4, 201–3, 208,
50, 59, 83, 99–100 223
publications and mass media 49,
Kalyar Sharif 2, 26, 52, 53 103, 120–1, 123–5, 127, 163–4
see also Sabir, 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad see also Pulau Besar; Sultan al-'Arifin
karamat (saintly miracles) 45, 55–6, maqam (stations of the Sufi path) 109,
71–2 139, 150, 156, 180
see also miracles Maqsuda Begam ('Amma Jan', d. 1997)
Karbala 32 11, 83–4, 85
khalifa (spiritual successor) 40, 52, 64, ma'rifa (esoteric, intuitive knowledge)
66–7, 75, 79–80, 132, 163 40, 51, 60, 95, 107, 109, 122,
khanaqah (Sufi lodge) 3, 45, 47, 53, 137, 212
68, 80, 175, 185 see also 'ilm; knowledge
Khizr 51, 83 mass media 9, 90–102, 120–7, 147,
knowledge 40, 49–50, 51, 63–4, 77, 158
86–7, 89, 94–6, 103, 106–8, master-disciple relationship 14, 16, 24,
110–11, 114, 122, 130–1, 137–42, 80, 95, 122, 129, 132, 139–62,
150–3, 158, 162–3, 166–9, 171–6, 171, 192, 198, 228, 229
205, 212 see also Chishti Sabiris; pir-murid
see also 'ilm; ma'rifa Maudud Mas'ud Chishti, Diwan 26–7,
29, 31
lata'if (subtle centers) 109, 187–9 see also Pakpattan Sharif
see also spiritual body Mawdudi, Abu al-'Ala' (1903–1979)
letter writing 35, 50, 54, 76, 82–3, 96, 97, 98, 107, 111, 113, 118
99–100, 136, 148, 153, 165–6, see also Jama'at-i Islami
173, 177, 179, 180–1, 194–5, mazars (Sufi tombs) 36, 52, 53, 65–6,
197–8, 199, 224 67, 70, 110, 199–201, 202–4, 206,
209, 210–11, 223–4
madrasa (Islamic religious school) 3, see also dargahs; shrines
21, 22, 34, 36, 48, 49, 64, 77, Mecca 23, 31, 44, 47, 48, 58, 86,
86–7, 95, 97, 137–8, 149, 155, 205 117, 200, 202
see also Deoband madrasa; 'ulama Medina 23, 62, 71, 115, 117, 120,
Magnificent Power Potential of Pakistan 124, 142, 229
112–20 miracles 40, 43, 45, 55–6, 71–2,
mahfil-i sama' (musical assembly) 84–5, 97, 144
213–24 see also karamat
see also qawwali; sama' mi'raj (Prophet Muhammad's
malfuzat (discourses of a Sufi master) ascension) 44
15, 40, 44–5, 46–7, 53, 75–6, 94, modernity 5–9, 19–24, 30, 86–7, 90,
102, 121, 123, 163, 165, 205, 215 94–5, 111–12, 120, 125–7, 133,
Malaysia 7, 17, 41, 80, 82, 103, 123, 169, 227–30
124, 130, 164, 171, 201–3, 227, 230 Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111) 104,
Malaysian disciples 113, 126, 163
background 5, 8–9, 132, 134–6, Muhammad the Prophet (570–632) 1,
138, 169, 193, 197–8, 225 4, 8, 32, 34–6, 43–4, 47, 51, 55,
272 INDEX
Muhammad the Prophet––continued Orientalism 13, 93, 95, 97, 103–8,

62, 65, 72, 77, 86, 101–2, 107, 113, 126
114, 117, 133, 136, 139, 142–3, see also British colonialism
145–6, 160, 170–1, 173–4, 181–2, orthodoxy 5, 12–3, 19–24, 30–8, 90,
188, 192, 197–8, 229 92, 94–6, 97, 102, 105, 107–10,
see also sunna 114–15, 125–7, 204–6, 214,
Mu'in ad-Din Chishti (d. 1236) 48, 227–9
51, 52, 68, 78
mujahada (spiritual striving) 50–1, 54, Pakistan
70, 173–5, 184–6, 191–2, 219–20, and Chishti Sabiri identity 25–38,
224 40–1, 96, 112–20, 206–8,
muraqaba (contemplation) 27, 50–1, 227–30
64, 81, 142–3, 186, 188–9, and Islamic identity 19–24, 34,
196–201, 203, 210, 211 74–5
murids (Sufi disciples) and Sufism 15, 19–26, 75
and modern life 6–9, 135–8, 185–6, Pakpattan Sharif 19, 66–7, 70, 112,
230 121, 149–50, 166, 198, 204, 207,
background of 9, 132–8 209, 210–12, 216, 217, 222, 224,
master-disciple relationship 139–62 227
texts and teaching networks see also Farid ad-Din Ganj-i Shakkar
129–32, 162–72 Pakpattan tragedy 25–38, 227
women 27, 32, 33–5, 67, 69–71, Partition (of South Asia in 1947)
72, 77–8, 83–4, 86, 101–2, 132, 21–6, 35, 40–1, 53, 62, 73, 75, 77,
133, 136, 137, 143, 147, 148–9, 79, 96, 101–2, 112–20, 134, 207,
162, 165, 166, 169, 170, 180, 227–30
181–2, 193, 200–1, 210, see also British colonialism; Pakistan;
211–12, 217, 223 postcolonialism
see also adab; Chishti Sabiris; pilgrimage networks 204–13
Malaysian disciples see also 'urs; ziyarat
Musharraf, Pervez 22 pir (a Sufi master), see master-disciple
music 2, 39, 45, 52, 56–8, 72, 110, relationship; shaykh
149, 190, 206, 213–24 pir bhai (brother of the master; Sufi
see also mahfil-i sama'; qawwali; sama' disciples) 28, 167, 184
Muttahida Majlis-i Amal (MMA) 22 pir-murid (master-disciple) 24, 80,
129, 130, 132, 135, 139–62, 170,
Nadwi, Sayyid Abu'l Hasan 'Ali 172, 188
(1914–1999) 105, 113 see also master-disciple relationship
nafs (lower self, ego) 34, 50–1, 58, postcolonialism 6–7, 9, 13, 22–4, 30,
106, 139–40, 168, 173–5, 179, 41, 47, 75, 78, 86–7, 91, 92, 94–6,
181, 183, 188, 208 126–7, 169, 171, 228, 230
see also psychology; self see also British colonialism; Pakistan;
Naqshbandi Sufi order 14, 39, 87, 93, Partition
94, 146, 151, 187, 190, 196, 198, poverty 19, 24, 58, 73, 136
202, 215 see also faqir
Nizam ad-Din Awliya' (d. 1325) 42, prayer 15, 27, 50, 51, 56, 65, 77, 79,
44–5, 52, 53, 54, 55, 163–4, 214, 81, 109, 136, 152, 160, 183,
219, 221 186–9, 197, 210–11
Nizami Bansari 163–4 psychology 109, 139–40, 151, 154–5,
Nusrat Fateh 'Ali Khan 213, 222 172–5, 187–90
see also qawwali see also self
I dex 273
Pulau Besar (Big Island) 201–3 sama' (listening to music) 33, 45, 52,
see also Sultan al-'Arifin; Malaysia; 57–8, 72, 110, 119, 149, 206,
Malaysian disciples 213–24
see also mahfil-i sama'; music; qawwali
qalb (heart) 109, 139, 140, 141, 188, sayyid (descendant of the Prophet
190, 191, 192 Muhammad) 32, 47, 69
qawwali (South Asian Sufi music) science 8, 39, 40, 49, 56, 64, 82, 104,
33–4, 57–8, 211, 213–24 110–12, 114, 115, 118, 197, 229
see also mahfil-i sama'; music; sama' sectarianism 21, 29, 74, 95, 101,
qawwals (singers) 2, 110, 216–17, 118–19, 133
218, 219, 220–3, 224 secularism 6, 7, 8, 21, 24, 47, 95,
Qur'an 1, 6, 35, 42–3, 45, 49, 50, 58, 100, 101, 108, 112, 114, 120,
63, 64, 69, 77, 91, 92, 94, 98, 137, 172
104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, self 5, 17, 24, 34, 51, 58, 106–7, 109,
114, 116, 123, 139, 142, 145, 116, 129, 131, 139–40, 154, 170,
149, 153, 155, 157, 162, 163, 172–5, 179, 187–90, 214, 225,
171, 173, 174, 177, 186, 189, 230
190, 191, 194, 205, 214, 215 see also nafs; psychology
qutb (axis; head of the Sufi saints) 70 September 11, 2001 15, 21, 35, 38
shahadat (martyrdom) 30–1, 38
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829–1905) Shahidullah Faridi (1915–1978)
3, 5, 36, 52, 89, 97, 205–6, 228 biography 5, 16, 40–1, 54, 59–64,
see also Deoband madrasa 68–75, 78–9, 86–7, 100, 101,
Rashida Khatun ('Ammi Jan', d. 1990) 121, 137, 199, 207
54, 69–71, 74 interaction with non-Muslims 68,
ritual practice 14, 64, 173–225 102, 138, 155
see also suluk qualities as a Sufi master 66–8,
ruh (soul; breath of God) 57, 106, 100–1, 132, 137, 143, 144, 148,
109, 139, 140, 179, 188, 191 178–9, 182, 228–9
spiritual training and teachings 37,
Sabir, 'Ala ad-Din 'Ali Ahmad (d. 1291) 64–6, 71–2, 80, 89–90, 140–1,
2, 3, 4, 52, 71 142, 145–6, 152, 160, 168, 170,
see also Kalyar Sharif 177, 183, 189–90, 192, 197,
sabr (patience) 32, 139 204, 205, 212, 222
Sabri Brothers 213, 222 writings of 47, 93–4, 96, 100–2,
see also qawwali 109, 112, 123–4, 126–7, 140,
sacred biography 41, 43, 44, 60, 72, 164–5, 183, 205, 229
75, 86, 229 shajara (tree, Sufi genealogy) 4, 143,
see also hagiography 186–7, 191, 202
saints/sainthood 2, 13–14, 19, 24, shari'a (Islamic law) 1, 6, 12, 34, 35,
32, 35, 37, 41–6, 47, 49, 55–6, 59, 37, 50, 53, 69, 72, 76, 84, 95,
65, 66, 72, 75, 76, 80, 84–5, 86–7, 107, 109, 118, 126, 139, 141,
100, 105, 110, 114, 137, 160, 144, 160, 161, 171, 172, 177,
161, 163, 166, 198–9, 200, 202, 182, 204, 214, 217, 228
204–5, 207, 209, 211–12, 216, shaykh (Sufi master) 3, 43–6, 139–45,
221, 228 150–3
see also awliya' Allah; hagiography see also master-disciple relationship
sajjada nishin (hereditary shrine Shi'a 8–9, 92, 101, 118–19, 125,
custodian) 23, 26, 37, 51 133
Sakhi Hassan cemetery 68, 71 see also Daudi Bohras; sectarianism
274 INDEX
shrines 2, 3, 13, 23–4, 25–6, 29, 34, 94–5, 114, 123, 160, 170, 171,
36, 37–8, 43, 53, 64–6, 68, 110, 182, 197–8, 204, 214, 229
133, 158, 168, 196–213, 216, 228 see also hadith; Muhammad the Prophet
see also dargah; mazar; 'urs
silsila (chain, Sufi genealogy) 1, 4, 17, ta'bir (classical Islamic science of dream
43, 130 interpretation) 176
Siraj 'Ali Muhammad 5, 27–8, 30, 33, see also dreams
121, 132–3, 134, 137, 143, 149, Tablighi Jama'at 36, 208
157, 158, 161, 193, 194, 195, 211 Taliban 22, 36, 227
sobriety 56–7, 72, 84–5, 106–7, see also Afghanistan
197–8, 214, 219 Tarbiyat al-'ushshaq (Training of the
spiritual body 187–9 Lovers) 40, 46–7, 50–1, 64–6, 69,
see also lata'if 97, 98, 100, 141, 150, 153, 154,
storytelling 60–1, 72, 74, 83, 90, 130, 156, 161–2, 163, 178, 179–80,
137, 144, 158, 160, 167–8, 172, 191–2, 193, 215–16, 218–20
176, 212 tariqa (path; a Sufi order) 1, 37, 43,
Sufism (tasawwuf) 107, 109, 129, 139, 146, 154,
and mass media 9, 90–102, 120–7, 160, 172, 184, 199
147, 158 tasawwuf, see Sufism
and modern life 6–9, 135–8, 185–6, tawwakul (surrender to God) 32, 58
230 teaching networks 1, 13, 16, 17, 96,
definitions of 1–5, 12–14, 103–8 129–32, 145, 158, 162–72, 212,
in Malaysia 7, 8–9, 17, 33–4, 49, 228
103, 120–1, 123–5, 127, 130, tradition 5–6
134–6, 148, 163–4, 166, 169,
171, 193, 201–3, 225, 230 Uch Sharif 10, 47, 202
in Pakistan 15, 19–38, 40–1, 74–5, 'ulama (Muslim religious scholars) 6,
96, 112–20, 206–8, 227–30 19, 21, 23–4, 30–1, 34, 37, 39, 49,
master-disciple relationship 14, 16, 86–7, 92, 94–6, 105, 106, 126,
24, 80, 95, 122, 129, 132, 142, 195, 229
139–62, 171, 192, 198, 228, 229 see also madrasa
ritual practices 173–225 'urs (marriage; death anniversary of a
teaching networks 1, 13, 16, 17, 96, Sufi saint) 10, 26, 29, 31, 32,
129–32, 145, 158, 162–72, 212, 33–4, 57, 64, 66, 79, 133, 149,
228 161, 168–9, 203, 204–13, 216,
suhbat (companionship) 76, 83, 158–9 221, 223–4, 227
Suhrawardi Sufi order 10, 39, 47, 146, see also pilgrimage networks; ziyarat
215 Uwaysi initiation 51, 68, 178
Sultan al-'Arifin (King of the Gnostics,
Shaykh Isma'il 'Abd al-Qadir vertical pedagogy 150–3
Thani) 201–3 visions 33, 40, 44, 47, 48, 51, 52, 65,
see also Malaysia; Pulau Besar 66–7, 83, 130, 176–7, 179–80,
suluk (journey, path; Sufi practice) 5, 181–2, 183, 196, 205
32, 54, 64, 65, 71, 79, 131, 136, see also dreams
140, 152, 154, 157, 167, 173,
177, 183, 184–6, 187, 188–9, 190, wahdat al-wujud (unity of being)
191, 196, 206, 208, 219–20, 105–6, 109
224–5 Wahhabism 31, 35–6, 58, 95, 97, 118,
sunna (the Prophetic model) 1, 6, 8, 217
12–13, 34–6, 43–4, 72, 76, 84, see also Islamists
I dex 275
Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani 132, 133, 136, 137, 143, 147,
(1910–1995) 148–9, 162, 165, 166, 169, 170,
biography 5, 16, 40–1, 75–8, 83–4, 180, 181–2, 193, 200–1, 210,
85–6, 86–7, 100, 121, 134, 137, 211–12, 217, 223
207
interaction with Malaysians 123, zahir (outward knowledge and
124, 134–5, 148, 149–50, 173, experience) 42, 63, 89, 101, 131,
178–9, 182, 194–5, 203 139, 194, 205
interaction with non-Muslims 81–2, Zauqi Shah, Muhammad (1877–1951)
123, 136, 144, 155 biography 5, 16, 28, 39–41,
letter writing 35, 76, 153, 165–6, 46–50, 54–5, 58–9, 66, 69–70,
173, 180, 194–5, 197–88 79, 80, 86–7, 100, 134, 137,
photograph of 10–11 161, 207
qualities as a Sufi master 76, 80–3, interactions with non-Muslims
132, 135, 148–9, 153, 161, 182, 50–2, 53–4, 55, 97–9
210, 228–9 qualities as a Sufi master 39–40,
spiritual training and teachings 35, 52–8, 63, 65, 67, 132, 137, 153,
50, 56, 62, 66, 68, 78–80, 84–5, 195–6, 228–9
89–90, 100–1, 133, 136, 137, spiritual training and teachings
140, 144, 147–8, 160, 166–7, 50–2, 55–8, 64–5, 66–7, 69,
173–4, 177, 180–1, 187–8, 192, 78, 89–90, 141, 142, 150,
194–5, 197–8, 198–9, 200, 203, 152–3, 154, 156, 160, 161–2,
206, 209, 214–15, 221, 224 163, 166, 172, 174–5, 179–80,
writings of 46–7, 49, 75, 93–4, 96, 191–2, 193, 196, 214, 215–16,
99, 102–20, 121, 124, 126–7, 218–20
164–5, 187–8, 198–9, 214–15, writings and discourses of 40, 46–7,
229 49–51, 64–6, 69, 93–4, 96–100,
wajd (spiritual ecstasy) 57 102, 109, 112, 121, 123, 124,
walaya (closeness) 42–3, 44 126–7, 141, 150, 153, 154, 156,
see also awliya' Allah; 161–2, 163, 164–5, 178,
saints/sainthood 179–80, 186, 191–2, 193,
wali Allah (Friend of God; a Sufi saint), 215–16, 218–20, 229
see awliya' Allah; saints/sainthood Zia al-Haq, Muhammad (President of
Waris Hasan, Shah Sayyid (d. 1936) Pakistan 1979–1989) 24, 101,
40, 48–9, 50, 51, 52, 63, 70, 83, 113
123, 137, 192, 196, 198 zikr (remembrance of God) 50, 53,
wasyat nama (final will and testament) 64, 66, 68, 79, 80, 82, 110, 133,
67, 70, 170 134, 136, 149, 157, 174, 180,
wilaya (guardian; intercessor) 26, 184–5, 186, 189–96, 198, 199,
42–3, 80, 199 210, 216, 225, 229–30
see also awliya' Allah; see also habs-i dam; halqa-i zikr
saints/sainthood ziyarat (pilgrimage to Sufi shrines) 15,
women disciples 27, 32, 33–5, 67, 79, 110, 205
69–71, 72, 77–8, 83–4, 86, 101–2, see also pilgrimage networks; 'urs

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Isl amic S ufism U nbound

I sl amic S ufism U nbound

P olitics and Piety in Twenty-First

ISBN 978-0-230-61896-1 ISBN 978-0-230-60572-5 (eBook)

Transferred to Digital Printing 2009

List of Illustrations vii

Introduction: Mapping the Chishti Sabiri Sufi Order 1

Mapping the C hishti Sabiri

Despite its deep roots in Islamic history, Sufism remains a controversial

dance traditions. Above all, Sufism in twenty-first-century South Asia

Today’s Chishti Sabiri disciples (murids) embrace the reformist spirit of

1. The Prophet Muhammad (d. 632)

37. Nur Muhammad Jhanjanawi (d. 1843)

Framing “Tradition” and “Modernity”

of the profane, lived-in world of temporal change and historical context.

as the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, the one common denominator

This book aims to decenter modernity. In my view, modernity is neither

do not quote from Western theorists. In practice, the silsila’s appropriation of

Much like their South Asian Shi'a counterparts, contemporary Chishti

Inside or Out?: Negotiating Boundaries

from religious historian Thomas Tweed,

Methods, Sources, and Structure

(sunna). At the same time, they champion Pakistan as the teleological

Sufism’s multiple dimensions—its public and private manifestations, its

practice of modernity, postcoloniality, religious nationalism, transnational

in sacred biographies. Drawing on Urdu manuscripts and personal oral

● a central marker in an imagined Pakistani (and now Malaysian) national

In charting these interdependent trajectories, this book demonstrates how, at

Sufism and the Politics

FAQIR or Faker? The Public Battle over Sufism

exist in a vacuum. Though rooted in personal spiritual piety, Sufism is always

Map 1.1 Map of Pakistan

entrenched theories of modernization and secularization, the progressive

norms. As Carl Ernst notes,

Ironically, as a result of strategic successes by fundamentalist movements in

In South Asia, the British Raj attempted to appropriate and manipulate

Within the framework of a colonial ideology, the Sufi faqir (mendicant)

The 2001 Pakpattan Tragedy

or Sikh “Other”—Pakpattan is no longer a site of intercommunal conflict or

custodian, Diwan Maudud Mas'ud Chishti. According to the authorities, the

These widely divergent renditions of events typify the public discourse

Chishti Sabiri Sufism as

According to disciples, this ability to maintain comportment in the face of

This emphasis on the power of redemptive suffering was further high-

Faizan—literally meaning “overflowing” or “abundance”—is a common

narratives—both oral and written—at the very heart of Muslim history,

Sufism is not against the Qur'an or Hadith, even by a fraction of an inch. In

The Taliban see themselves as reformers, a movement to restore past glory.

I heard Chishti Sabiri disciples level a similar critique—often couched in

Muslim, Mystic, and Modern:

In addition to this, the book contains a complete course in the eradication of

T his glowing panegyric comes from the introduction to Tarbiyat al-

Islamic Sainthood: The Sufi

vicegerent.”8 For premodern Sufi masters and contemporary academics

Sufis view the Prophet Muhammad as the paradigmatic shaykh, the

The rank of sainthood [walayat] is higher than prophecy [nubuwwat].

In the eyes of many Muslims, this is a controversial claim. Some would

The Chishti Sufi Master: Past and Present

In the following pages, I demonstrate how this typology of the premod-

Shaykh Sayyid Muhammad

1. Muqaddama [“Introduction”]: a lengthy and detailed introduction to

3. Malfuzat [“Spiritual Discourses”]: compiled by Shahidullah Faridi and

A separate account, Hajj-i Zauqi [“Zauqi’s Hajj Pilgrimage”] also written by

Family Background and Spiritual Initiation